I started to read this novel while on holiday by the sea. I was feeling rather optimistic at the time - you see, it enjoys a pretty high rating average on Goodreads, 4 stars out of 5, nothing less. Why - my mind boggles. It was horrid. It was stupid. It was a fantasy book without one inch of imagination or, well, fantasy. The fact that your characters are fairies, demons, trolls and werewolves DOESN'T mean anything without the proper world build and here there was no such a thing. Still I was the first Goodreads user who actually has given it one star. There must be something wrong: with the universe, with me, with the books and the publishing industry, with the world at large. Horribly, terribly wrong. How cannot people notice? HOW?It is a relatively short novel - just 133 pages. One third of it consists of sex scenes. Boring, repetitive and schematic sex scenes I must add. Any and every conflict is resolved by either sex or deus-ex-machina magic performed by some gods - Freia and Carl Donovan are among them. Carl Donovan a.k.a. the Donovan is really a strange choice of name for a divine entity but whatever - if you compare it to the fact that all characters of this beauty take the expression "too stupid to live" to quite an insanely low level one inappropriate name is really a minor glitch.Ponder over this: Mei was imprisoned and tortured by some BDSM demonic afficionados for a millenium. Yes, a millenium of torture and rapes, you read it right. Nobody even thought of looking for her because everybody believed she had been killed in a battle. Why? Her aunt said so. Nobody found the remnants of Mei's body, nobody saw anything but all those great fairies, Mei's mother and her very loving husband, Jaice, among them, assumed that if Eire (the aunt) says Mei is dead then Mei is dead, end of the story. Irrefutable logic, right? Then Mei is freed from her prison by Card the half were half demon, soon to be her hubby number two; after a period of recovery she returns home and she is said that Jaice is dead, her mom doesn't want to see her anymore, she is disinherited and basically she can go and jump to the lake, thank you very much for the visit, don't bother to show your face the second time. Yes, you guessed right: once again her lovely aunt was the source of those completely false revelations. Actually she sent one of Mei's mother flunkies to do the dirty job. What Mei, a clever warrior and a fairy princess several millenia old, does? She believes in every word of that flunkey - without even thinking of contacting anybody else. If you are said by a third party your beloved husband is dead and your mum hates your guts you should ALWAYS believe it straightaway, right? Even without any proof presented? *headdesk*Then the novel went from bad to worse. Yes, I mean the baddies, whose characterization was non-existent. You see, they are bad because a) they are DARK fae (got it? DARK!!!) and b) they hate humans. Oh well, sometimes I am not so fond of humans either and I dress in black - I bet I am bad too, right? Not that the goodies were better, believe me, they were not. Both male interests of the main heroine could be described very simply as a red-headed, long-braided Scot with great physique (Jaice) and a half-werewolf half-demon with yellow eyes and great physique (Card). Here you go - now you know everything there is to know about them. I bet plenty of male catwalk models show more of their personality during an average photo session than those two. Their main role is to satisfy Mei in bed (or anywhere else if the mood strikes) and generally take care of her. If you are now wondering I rush to add the crucial bit of info: both do it at the same time. Mostly. In order to spoil you even further: they are her two husbands and they are fond of each other as well. How come? Magic! Nothing else is needed in a successful relationship, right? (btw thanks Tasha/heidenkind for that little beauty below!)If only magic extended also to the plot, the dialogues and the overall writing quality...unfortunately the plot was HIGHLY predictable, I bet my dog would guess any major turn and twist without any problem, the dialogues were wooden infodumps full of cliches and maudlin love and/or independence declarations (independence so you knew Mei is kick-ass), some sentences were clearly grammatically incorrect and after reaching the half point I decided I really don't need to torture myself any longer so I dumped it. Still I amused myself with checking the finale grande. Yes, I guessed EVERYTHING right. What joy ;(Final verdict:So not for me that I can hardly contain myself, limiting the amount of expletives to zero. If you want to know how a fantasy erotica novel looks when gone completely awry, read this one but don't blame me afterwards - you have been warned.
