Ben has been a dubious character from the start of the series and I've been near desperate to know what his deal is ever since.
A misogynistic werewolf with a possible history of female abuse but unquestionable protective instincts towards woman is... well, that's hard to ignore or forgive.
The fact that Adam, his Alpha, doesn't trust Ben around his daughter, doesn't allow him to be alone with her, is enough for me to question why in the lupine hell he's even in the book.
He isn't a character to warm to.
He isn't someone I find particularly inviting.
He's amusing at times but his inherent dislike and disrespect of woman is, frankly, vile and distinctly uncomfortable to read.
But somehow, over the last few books his character has grown on me, solely because of the way he's protected Mercy on numerous occasions.
Again, this dichotomy of misogyny and protectiveness makes Ben an incredibly confusing character.
Because he doesn't use his strength and superiority as a weapon against Mercy, he doesn't beat her down and call her a little woman in need of saving - which she clearly isn't.
He just protects her.
Puts his life in place of hers.
Gets seriously fucked up on several occasions making sure she makes it out alive.
He slept at the end of her bed when she was hurt for furry sake.
I just... I don't understand Ben as a character, and with the revelation of his frankly horrifying history where he is both the abused and the abuser, it makes even less sense.
This story is called Redemption but can there really ever be any for someone who enjoys hurting women and being a spectator to their abuse, under duress or not?
Every review I've read has either not acknowledged this at all, or simply forgiven it and to be honest, it's left me completely dumbfounded.
Are we that conditioned to let it slide when a man hurts us because they feel bad, because they say they're sorry?
Yeah, we are; that's what society has done to us.
But to that I say a distinct: Fuck. No.
Hit a woman? Arrest them.
Hit a man? Arrest them.
Watch someone being abused and enjoy it, under duress or not? Fucking arrest them.
Then get them help.
...
Now, in the situation of being a werewolf, I will admit, this is a little different - and because it's fiction you can do whatever you want.
You can't put a ravening beast into a cage and expect good results.
A lot of bloodshed, perhaps, but not rehabilitation.
So, I understand Ben being exiled from his pack in England, and made Adam's problem; he can get the help he needs with Adam.
But I'm going to need a little more than saving Mercy and a colleague, and throwing a smile around here and there.
Because after being inside Ben's head, it's still very clear that he may want to change but if you're still base-level hateful towards women because they have the audacity to exist, you're not getting better, you might never get better.
...
Briggs, I'm not sure what I was supposed to get out of this, but if it was forgiving Ben or simple warming him more?
He became that character, the enigmatic one, the impossibly handsome and elusive one, the one who can talk shit without anyone realising because he's an actual wizard of words.
And then imagine that filthy, angelic package with a weirdly charming arrogance, a healthy dose of intimidating intelligence, an unexpected sense of humour, and a whole lifetime of pent-up lupine crazy just waiting to fuzzball out at any given moment.
...
Go on, ruminate, I'll wait.
...
Understand now why this guy's been on my mind?
I'm not normally drawn to characters, especially male characters, who exude this much confidence; they often come across as more arrogant douchebag than self-assured king-of-my-own-kingdom, and arrogance is a major turn off for me.
But somehow Asil manages to skirt the line between "so damn old that he knows he's hot shit" and being a cocksure prick about it.
Somehow he makes it obscenely attractive, he makes you want to lean a little closer to hear what unexpected wonder will roll off his beautifully accented tongue next.
He's that guy.
Throw in his tender love of rose growing, the same tenderness and patience he shows to a newly turned werewolf in need of guidance (see: Roses in Winter in the Shifting Shadows collection - such a beautiful short story), his general amusement at the behaviour of werewolves far junior to him, and he's just... so readable.
Unappreciated Gifts is the second short story I've read featuring Asil and this one is far more lighthearted than the previous.
In this we're not focusing so much on how old Asil is or his struggle to maintain his humanity and not let the wolf take over.
Instead, a prank is played on him by, as he refers to them, the children.
Younger members of his pack show "concern" for his lack of social life and set him up on a series of dates they've orchestrated by pretending to be him.
(I know, catfishing, not cool, but this is fiction so just shut it, morality police and trust me, this is adorable)
But there's a catch:
A successful date is one in which a) neither party runs screaming into the night b) there are no dead bodies at the end of it and c) lasts longer than two hours—at least an hour and a half of which is spent with your date—which is an hour and fifty minutes longer than we expect any date of yours to last.
There's a strong part of me that thinks our eponymous Omega in the Alpha & Omega series might be the driving force in this particular game of Get Asil Socialised.
A very strong part of me.
So, we have Anna to thank for this delightful little Winterfest tale.
We have Anna to thank for Asil showing the manners of a true gentleman who never balks in the face of the unexpected.
We have Anna to thank for the visual of the above-mentioned Moreno/Isaac love-child in authentic Renaissance clothing, all floral brocade and richly coloured fabrics.
We have Anna to thank for the general delight of being around a seasoned werewolf who could charm the undies off the most devout of nuns simply by existing in their direction.
And then he has the audacity to smile, or god forbid, open his mouth and speak...
...
Yeah... I could do with a lot more Asil in my reading life.
Hopefully Patricia Briggs will give it to me.
But for now, there's this lovely story.
There's a little mischief.
A little flirting.
A lot of respect.
A dash of dancing.
And a routine beheading.
...
Now, the challenge included five dates in total... where can I get my paws on the other four? Hmm?
That Fine Art student part of my brain has been banished to the depths of my mind palace hobbit hole and given strict instructions to stay quiet and keep its pretentious butt out of everybody's business.
We like the storytellers with the emotive faces, please and thank you.
He blocked the door, standing with arms loose and ready. "Something funny?" he asked, voice like a horse-hoof rasp on stone.
"Not really. Tell Katie that Jane Yellowrock is here." Tough always works best on first acquaintance. That my knees were knocking wasn't a consideration.
"Card?" Troll asked. A man of few words. I liked him already. My new best pal. With two gloved fingers, I unzipped my leather jacket, fished a business card from an inside pocket, and extended it to him. It read JANE YELLOWROCK, HAVE STAKES WILL TRAVEL. Vamp killing is a bloody business. I had discovered that a little humor went a long way to making it all bearable.
I've been sitting here for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to start this review.
And I think I might need a few minutes more because honestly?
I don't really know where to begin.
This is the weirdest mashup of dorky, cringey, badass, gory, lore-stuffed female-led Urban Fantasy I think I've ever read that wasn't Steampunk.
(Steampunk being the genre equivalent of a sugar-denied kid at a Pick 'n' Mix stand screaming I want all the things!)
If this was a tv show, it'd be True Blood, Charmed, Buffy and the Underworldmovies smooshed into an oddly delightful 90s-esque package.
If she was real, I think my head would explode from that level of good-looking.
No, seriously, it would be an apocalyptic event.
Acid rain would fall.
Devils would escape from the earth's core.
I'm sure there'd be a rogue Furby out murdering neighbourhood kids because, y'know, they're the stuff of evil.
And all because a giantess shifter by the name of Jane Yellowrock took her rightful place upon the throne.
Hark! A goddess was born.
...
This is what this book does to me.
A blithering idiot takes the place of a rational reviewing brain and this nonsense comes pouring out.
Which, to be fair, might not be that different from usual but at least those other times I knew what to do with the bloody women causing my brain to atrophy.
I at least knew where to start.
Because if you hadn't noticed already, nothing of note has actually left my imbecile mouth yet.
...
BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS RIDICULOUS AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH IT!
...
I really don't.
There's a part of me that actively didn't enjoy this.
The info dumps were too long.
The use of side characters was frustrating because there was no established time for relationships to form - although, I already have a ship in place. Shocking, I know.
The supernatural lingo was detailed, often confusing, hard to remember, and perhaps just a little too much all at once.
Jane's wardrobe was distractingly off-kilter, even anachronistic at times, and I just don't see how she can hide a full stake, let alone three, in her hair. That makes no sense. Does she have a neck of steel to hold this shit up? Or is she using Balsa toothpicks to dust the undead? What. The. Fuck?
The switching of POV between Jane and her shifter counterpart, Beast was like reading a really boring predatory shopping list. Did not enjoy. And it lasted whole chapters. ... Ugh.
And everything just felt kind of... hokey?
If this had been written in the 90s, instead of 12 years ago, I would've been completely fine with it.
It would have made sense because everyone kind of looked like an idiot in the 90s.
And, to be fair, I can't find a confirmed date for when the Jane Yellowrock series is set, so I may very well be talking out of my ass but I just... I just don't think so.
This felt very much like it was written by someone who enjoys particular things - bohemian clothing, belly dancing, elitist tea, and motorcycles - and forced them onto a heroine who doesn't quite match up.
At least not cohesively to those particular things.
And I found it exceptionally distracting.
I like Jane, I like her a lot, in fact. She's snarky and capable, antagonistic, kind, headstrong and independent but not some brooding asshole with no sense of fun.
She's a really attractive heroine, inside and out.
But these things get lost in Faith Hunter's outward treatment of her.
Yes, a person's clothing and visible interests are not a reliable reflection of who they are inside; you can't gauge someone's morals by the brand of sneakers they wear.
But to a certain degree they do co-exist with the person wearing them, and they didn't with Jane.
So, instead of getting know her better, fictionally bonding with her, I spent the whole book trying to figure out if it was physically possible to hide a blade in your underwear without incurring death by a thousand ouchies.
It's fiction, so I suppose so? But still.
Distracting.
Very distracting.
And dated.
Do you know what's not dated and never will be?
The hot vampire trope.
Yeah, sorry to be shallow, but I haven't encountered it in UF for a while and I'm not unhappy about it.
(In the Kate Daniels series, vampires are malformed, eldritch horrors who wear purple sunscreen to prevent premature combustion, and in theMercy Thompson series, the vampires may be pretty but they're not exactly... stimulating? They're haughty, personality vacuums if I'm being brutal. Except Stefan, the Mystery Machine driving, people-loving, friendly vamp about town)
Especially when it comes in the form of Leo Pellissier.
Black eyes, coffee-and-milk skin, dark hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders. French lineage, maybe. Aristocratic and elegant. His photos lied. In them he looked ordinary. In person the vamp was drop-dead gorgeous. The drop-dead part would have been funny if I didn't feel like an insect about to be stepped on.
His smiled widened, as if he read every thought in my head, from gorgeous to squashed. "If she dishonors me again," he said, "I will kill her, rogue vampire to be contained or no." He held his injured hand to Katie. She did something behind the curtain of her hair and I smelled vamp blood. A moment later, she stood and raised her bleeding wrist to Leo. He took it in one hand and pulled her to him, the motion exposing the side of her body as the robe fell open. The whites of his eyes bled red; the pupils expanded black as he vamped out. He put her wrist to his mouth, bit, and closed his lips around the wound. And he sucked. But his eyes were on me.
I felt the pull of his mouth as if he drank from my wrist. Heat blossomed in my belly. Beast rumbled a growl I just barely controlled. Leo chuckled deep in his throat, drinking. I couldn't help myself. I slid my fingers around the hilt of the vamp-killer. Those red-as-blood, black-as-death eyes followed the motion. And then looked into my own eyes. I resisted everything I saw there. Everything he made me want. Son of a freaking sea lion. This guy was good. Powerful as the devil himself.
Hot damn.
Hot. Freaking. Damn.
He's beautiful. He's flirty. He's got a total hard-on for our leading lady and isn't shy about showing it.
When my vision cleared, I was lying on Katie's floral couch, my injured arm being bathed in icy water by George. Leo stood behind him, his suit coat and tie off, rolling up his sleeves.
"Oh, crap," I said, my voice full of gravel and bigger rocks, grinding over one another. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I'm too old for a spanking and not quite up to defending myself from a butt whupping. Can we do this another time?"
Leo smiled, the grim expression pulling the flesh of his cheeks tight to his bones. He was an elegant man, his silk shirt catching the light and hinting at the olive-toned flesh beneath. His butt was cupped by the tailored pants like a second skin. He was beautiful. Really beautiful.
He knelt by my side with that fluid vamp grace. "Thank you," he said, quietly amused. At which point I realized that I had spoken at least some part of my musings about his butt aloud. If I hadn't been in so much pain, I might have squirmed at the thought.
Weird mix but that's Leo; he's an appealing combination of throw you up against a wall without your permission (but totally with your permission) and a definite pinky-lifter whilst drinking tea, or I guess blood, in his case.
...
Uptight and despicably hot, essentially.
And engaging.
I spent a fair amount of this book just waiting for Leo and Jane to interact; they didn't even need to speak, just breathe the same air, hurl pheromones at each other across a room, and attempt not to bang each other into oblivion.
Which they managed, much to my dismay.
I reached slowly toward him with my healed arm, fingers brushing the skin of his neck. He breathed out with the touch. I curled the tendril of his hair around my fingers, my tendons restored, healed, the motion pain free.
When his eyes were not human but no longer fully vampy, he turned his face into my palm and rested his cheek against my fingers, his black hair caught between hand and face. "What are you?" he asked, wonder in his voice. When I didn't answer, he whispered, "Your blood tastes like oak and cedar and the winter wind. Tastes wild, like the world once was. Come to my bed," he breathed on my hand. "Tonight."
I watched, knowing he was using his vamp voice on me, but not minding so very much. Not right now. He kissed my palm, his hair still tangled in my fingers, his lips cool, but soft. His eyes took mine, his gaze velvet lined but powerful, like a gilded cell. "Come to my bed."
"No," I murmured. "Not gonna happen."
I have this terrible feeling Faith Hunter is not going to give me what I want.
She's going to dangle this beautiful, undead fucker right in my face and not get him together with the heroine.
Because do you know what Hunter has unceremoniously thrown me into?
...
A love square.
A fucking love square.
I don't even have the patience for a triangle, let alone a square!
God, I'm tired already just thinking about it.
Why must authors do this to me all. the damn. time?
(It's not like they'll be brave enough to give me the polyamorous relationship I deserve. Ugh)
The one upside is that the two other candidates are suitable appealing.
A suspicious gun-for-hire biker with sex rolling off him like steam, and Leo's bodyguard, who flirts like a champ and Salsas Jane into near completion ← I said what I said.
...
Yeah, I can deal with that.
But unless they up their charisma game, I foresee a frustrating amount of Pellissier pining in my future.
The perils of being a hardcore shipper from the very inkling of attraction.
When will I learn?
It's lucky, I guess that the story itself was as intriguing as the potential romantic pairings.
Set in New Orleans, a city famed for the supernatural, the atmosphere of the story already felt infused with something dark and otherworldly.
Tasked by one of the local vampire clans to hunt and dispatch an insane rogue vampire, Jane's life is put in danger almost from the get go.
Led a merry dance almost nightly through the jazz-laden streets of NOLA, she's stalked and slashed and taunted by the creature she hunts.
It's creepy and, dare I say, a little gross.
A large amount of the Urban Fantasy I've read isn't exactly heavy on the horror.
Sure, a lot of it has been downright frightening - there are two particular scenes in the Mercy Thompson series that will haunt my dreams forever - but never, exactly, gory.
And it's something I didn't know I was missing from my reading experience.
I don't particularly enjoy blood and guts - unless it's hilarious à la the Shaun of the Dead disembowelling; when his legs come off I can't help but howl - but for some reason I really enjoyed the rank depths Faith Hunter was willing to plunge in order to show the true horror of the creature Jane's hunting.
She didn't blindfold us from the truth, soften or gloss over the carnage it wreaks across the city, instead she forced our gaze and demanded we watch.
Luckily I wasn't reading this while eating because, well... yuck, Hunter.
Seriously, bleurgh, blech and oh holy mother of Jesus, whyyyy?
I never need to see that vivid a description of a face-ectomy ever again.
Never ever.
But also:
I've always been this odd dichotomy of sick puppy and unrepentant wimp.
I don't understand it, but it does mean I've seen a fair amount of incredibly gross and confusingly enjoyable horror.
And the icky scenes in Skinwalker definitely hold up to that standard but without dominating the story and turning it into a gore-fest and nothing more.
Better yet, it added something I'm not normally treated to in UF and coaxed me into believing this series might become a firm favourite and a welcome change from the style I'm used to.
As much as I love my favourites (Kate, Mercy, Peter, Atticus), I know what to expect with the villains, I know how far the authors will take the level of violence.
I don't have that with Faith Hunter; Jane and her upcoming adventures are total wildcards and that's pretty exciting.
As is the opportunity to explore more of Jane's history.
We're given glimpses throughout the first book and treated to some significant information to sink our disappointingly human teeth into, but she starkly remains a mysterious fucker.
Older beyond her physical appearance, capable beyond human understanding, perhaps the last of her kind (at least of sound mind), sharing her body with a stolen - sasstacular - entity, attracting every able body around just by being her delightfully button-pushing self.
Jane Yellowrock is anything but boring and I get the impression that even if the disarming cringeyness and info-dump happy storytelling starts to grate too much on my nerves, my enjoyment of Jane won't.
Or my enjoyment of Leo.
Or Jane and Leo.
Or Leo and a brick wall/blank sheet of paper/swirling black of hole of mundanity.
I really did enjoy this, Anna Kendrick being another gift to the world but it was just so aggressively heteronormative and, sorry Kendrick, basic.
Girl meets dream boy, boy moves away, girl dates a series of useless males, girl struggles for a micro-second and then gets dream job, girl gets preggo, endgame person comes along.
...
Barf
If it hadn't been Kendrick in the leading role, I'm almost sure I would have hate-watched this instead of enjoying it.
Because from the very beginning it reels off a list of facts about how "most" people's love life goes.
Actual percentages of when someone falls in love, how many times etc. but there's no mention of people with no romantic inclinations or those who have yet to be in a relationship past the age society deems "normal" or whether they even want to be in a relationship.
It doesn't mention polyamory, it doesn't go into open relationships, it kind of addresses casual sex but only as a stopgap to coupling up, it goes nowhere near sex addiction.
It's so stunted in its generalised hetero-ness that it's almost hard to look at.
This is a straight show for straight people who have had a partner(s) since they were in their early teens.
...
Yawn.
As I said, if it hadn't been for Anna Kendrick, this would have totally been on my shit list.
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