Tag: bully romance

Posted in Spicy Romance

The Orc and the Innkeeper

Posted on by Little Bee

By Cora Crane

Rating 5 out of 5 Stars

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Orc and the Innkeeper was one of those books that I could not put down. I found myself gasping and kicking my feet giggling throughout the story. It follows two characters who start out as “enemies”. Thorak traumatically teased Mariah growing up. It was so bad, that all these years later, she is still suffering the effects. Situations occur and they pretend to be fake engaged in order to get a human investor to work with Thorak.

The story follows the standard framework for a typical romance novel: the background information on both characters, the eventual coming together, the romance, the third act breakup/blowout, followed by the reconnection, HEA. This story also relies heavily, I mean HEAVILY, on the miscommunication trope. I mean like, the whole story. I would normally mark down in ranking for that, but the whole story was still just so fun and so cute. It is a great little cozy, spicy, monster romance, and I was here for it the whole time.

I really enjoyed all of the side characters. I think each one enhanced the story to help further it along. The characters all had things going on in their lives, but all still were brought together. There were several points of high drama, I will let you read those for yourself, and they definitely amped up the miscommunication tropes.

I liked that the internal “racism” wasn’t just one sided. There were humans who did not want to do business with Orcs (which is the whole purpose of this story) and even Orcs who were very anti human (such as Thorak’s parents, and Thorak’s bullying of Mariah when they were younger). I like how it showed the progression of these characters to adopt new mindsets, and how it is not always easy to do so.

The spice was nice, but it is not SUPER spicy. It has enough, but comes a bit later in the book.

Overall, the story was well written. I read it so fast, it is not a terribly long book. I am definitely looking forward to Ecco’s story in book 2. I think Elderberry Falls needs to have a vacant house so I can just move right in 🙂

Posted in Romance

Shattered Vow

Posted on by Little Bee

By Eva Chase

5 out of 5 stars

Shattered Vow is the first book in the Shadowblood Souls series by Eva Chase. This book follows a group of captives who are forced to train together, caged, and not allowed to live a “normal” life. The story follows a female character (Riva) and five males. After a tragic incident, they get separated. Four years later, Riva makes her way back her men, but do they accept her back?

This is the first in a series, with book 3 coming out in February 2023. While it is a romance read, it is not spicy. It is very slow burn and the only sexy scene occurs much later towards the end of the book. I am not usually a bully romance reader. I tend to stay away from them as much as possible, because I am just not a fan. I will say, I did still enjoy this book. I had hoped for something a little more grander than the incident that kind of set everyone straight again. I thought Jacob’s treatment of Riva for majority of the book was too much and felt forced. Even with this, I still enjoyed the book. I really liked Riva’s character. She was very strong and put up with a lot of shit from these guys without ever faltering. The one sex scene that occurs was okay, I wouldn’t say it was the spiciest I have ever read, but was written well. I wish there was a little more information on the “marking” that happened, but maybe it comes in a later book, since at that point in the story, the characters still did not know what they truly were.

The characters are all part human and part monster. They are trained very hard to highlight and strengthen their gifts. They eventually break out of captivity and set across country to try and find the former head of the program to get answers. All they all want is answers and to be free. Along the way, each person has their own growth development. The story is told from multiple POVs, however, the main POV is usually Riva.

This book does end on a cliffhanger, and boy is it a doozie. The book starts out when they are about 16 years old when they are separated and picks up around 20 years old. During that time, each character had new “powers” show through that were further developed. Riva keeps hers pretty close to her chest as she does not know much about it or how to control it, so when she finally does show it off…..it is very intense. I could not help but smile and laugh all the way through the scene. I really wish I could have seen those guys’ faces afterwards. I am looking forward to reading book 2 to see how they felt about it!