Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The short version: if you are a foreward thinking woman of the 21st century I advise you to go ahead and skip this book. You want the long version? Be prepared, there are spoilers galore but--I like to think--valid points as well. So you know when you read a book and you realize you really dislike it, but you keep reading it anyway just to leave a long review on Amazon? Yeah, this was one of those books and this is a very long review. I enjoy reading romance novels. I enjoy reading paranormal novels. As such, I jumped at being able to read a (free) combination of the two. The book started out promising enough. Andrea, the title character, is your average day working citizen--she's putting herself through culinary school, trying to pay the bills, and stays in contact with her aging grandmother. At this point in the book everything was going fine. I knew from the syntax and sentence flow that this author knew what she was talking about grammatically so I snuggled into my bed further for a pleasant read. Then Andrea's grandmother wheedles Andrea into visiting her at the manor house she maintains in Alaska. One of those "I've already bought the tickets, see you the, I've got to go!" situations that's terribly annoying. Now, I'm all for a slight amount of meddling and this, to me, was acceptable. Andrea, like the obedient granddaughter she is, goes to the land of caribou and Sarah Palin. And it's right about there that I stopped liking this book. The moment Andrea arrives, Grandma Matilda not only tells her she has terminal cancer but then the next day leaves a note saying she has gone to Tahiti with instructions for Andrea to care for the house. Well, along with caring for the house she must also care for the two newly arrived half-human beefcake warrior men from another world (called Haunts) that suddenly inhabit it. Matilda's hope, of course, is that Andrea, who is in her early twenties, will take one look at one of these strapping men and fall in love and being immediately popping out babies. This disturbs me on two levels. The first being the callous manner in which a terminal disease was bantered about and used as a matchmaking device. The second is that a fifty seven year old grandmother (anyone see anything wrong with this age, by the way?) is pressuring her young granddaughter to start having children when she is unemployed and fertile. Ah, but Granny knew that the strapping warrior beefcake would take care of her financially, right? Of course she did. Which makes the situation even more depressing from the perspective of a woman of the 21st century. Enter Mathin, a "Haunt" (basically, someone who can transform into a werewolf) who hails from another world, the Darklands. He meets Andrea and is immediately assaulted by her "charmer" scent. Andrea, by the way, emits a pheremone that calls all Haunt men to her like flies to honey. What's the only way that she can tamper this pheremone? Well, for one, mating with a Haunt. Yes, go ahead, drop your head onto your desk. I'll wait. Good? Okay. So Mathin approaches her with the caveman statement "you're mine" and the downhill spiral becomes positively vertial. Their courtship is a series of incidents where Andrea acts as though her will was made of jelly. For instance, Mathin decides--on his own--that he must take her to the Darklands to protect her. Humans could trace her charmer scent, disfigure her, and turn her into Haunt bait and he doesn't want that. I mean, that's an acceptable reason to want someone out of harms way, right? But at no time does Mathin tell Andrea where he is taking her. Nope, they were just out for a nice horseride when oops, a portal to a new world. When they arrive in the Darklands he promptly tells her that this is her new home and she had better get used to it. Powerless (physically as well as emotionally) Andrea basically just sulks. This sulking continues through a few days when she meets other human women who breeze through her kidnapping by insinuating "you'll get used to it" and when talking about the Haunt men they wave their hands and say "oh don't worry, he loves you, it's just their way, aren't they so cute?" Okay, so the cute part was my interpretation. But Andrea had very real reasons to be freaked out. A) Kidnapped. B) Kept like a pet. C) Told to "get used to everything." Oh, and I forgot to mention, Grammy Matilda is in the Darklands too. It's where she went instead of Tahiti and she also tells Andrea to get over being upset and to start the reproduction cycle. Yes, because nothing is better than producing children when under Stockholm syndrome. And so it continues, Andrea manages to convince herself that she's really only afraid of admitting her feelings for Mathin. Mathin, by the way, doesn't seem to take her feelings into account. He wants to get it on and make her his wife (the Haunt become married when they exchange sexual fluids with a partner) and doesn't understand her resistance at all. He believes that he was completely justified in doing what he did because it was what was best for Andrea. But did Andrea get a say? No. Did she care? Not really. Oh I forgot about the symbiots! Well, a symbiot play a pretty big role here. They're basically a little silver wormy thing that works with the human body to heal itself of injuries and age is slowly. It wraps around the wrist like a bracelet. And Mathin tricked Andrea into getting one of these. Allow me to illustrate: Mathin: "Oh, doesn't that fruit look delicious? Why don't you reach for it?" Andrea: "Why yes it does, I'll--ah! What have you done to me?" Mathin: "It's for your own good, dear." Andrea: "Well if that's the case then okay." So there's to the point where mating is inevitable and suddenly, Mathin is ordered to go to his ancestral home where an uprising is stewing. On the way, his friend Raziel develops an attraction to Grammy Matilda (at the point I was nearly losing my lunch) and convinces Mathin to convince Andrea to give half her symbiot to Matilda. Andrea does and immediately the grandmother becomes a young, sexy, and fiery red head. Ew. What's more, Matilda looks up at Andrea and begins screeching things like "how could you?!" For me, I actually got really angry at all this hypocrisy. This grandmother tricked her granddaughter into the Darklands and practically forced her into a union with someone she's known for maybe a month or two and is also pressuring her to have babies or learn to crochet (I like crocheting just as much as the next person but Andrea, who had been so adamantly against it beforehand was instantly saying things like "I can make a baby blanket"). And Grandma Matilda can't udnerstand why Andrea did it? Under the influence of Mathin? The guy she is with because of her grandmother? Anyone else see problems with this? So they get to Mathin's lands after a lot of drama (i.e. "You're not paying attention to me and now you're paying too much attention to me!" "I don't understand how women work but I'm sure sexual activity can solve everything") Oh yeah, and by this time the two are mated--in the middle of a forest, because apparently going au nautural on a blanket in the middle of the woods is cool for a girl's first time--and get into the routine of domestic bliss when Andrea (surprise surprise) finds out she's pregnant. Since her symbiot is only at half strength Mathin "allows" her to stay with the swamp people (who work/live freely with symbiots) and let them heal her. Mathin can't stay because they don't allow Haunts since they're still sore about several wars they fought with the Haunts. Enter Leo. A tall blond who is by far the most interesting character in this story. She explores the swamp on a hover craft and doesn't take crap from anyone. The most disappointing part of this story comes up here and nearly had me throwing this book into the bin (figuratively speaking anyway). Leo's brother and his wife are pressuring her (at the age of 26) to marry (her people live a good two centuries longer than us humans) even though she has made it perfectly clear that she wants her freedom. To make it worse, her brother's wife keeps sending her dresses and furnishings that she "just couldn't resist buying but is too pregnant to wear/use." No, I'm not kidding. What's worse, Andrea decides to play matchmaker and fix Leo up with the town doctor Scy (don't ask my how you pronounce that) because she finds it sad that Leo is in such a state of independence (Scy also made it clear that he wants a woman with domesticity on her mind). To be clear, her character doesn't say so aloud but reading this you can really see it as clearly as the words on the page. Apparently, Scy is half Haunt (and also Mathin's younger half-brother) because Mathin's father (Mathin the Ravager) went to war with Leo's swamp people and took the raping and pillaging thing to a whole different level. Leo, by the way, is also part charmer. How fortuitous. The addition of the sudden half brothers was just odd and in the last 15% of the book there was suddenly a murder investigation. Leo and a very pregnant Andrea get kidnapped by another of Mathin's half brothers--who is half Haunt and such a monster that he doesn't deserve to live. Mathin and Scy come to rescue the two and guess who immediately starts giving birth? Bingo. After that, Andrea and Mathin are in the throes of domestic bliss, Matilda and Raziel are mated (ew ew ew) and Andrea decides that Leo needs to go to the town dance dressed up in a pretty gown with ribbons all in her hair. There was a part here, near the end of the book that nearly had me throwing up. Andrea presents Leo to Mathin and asks him if he thinks she's pretty. He looks straight at her and says that he thinks she's beautiful (obviously meaning Andrea). She gets indignant that Mathin is ignoring all of her hard work and is insistent that he look at Leo and comment. Mathin agrees that she does, indeed, look fetching. Andrea then gets jealous so she has to give him a steamy kiss to assuage her feelings. I... I could not even believe that was written there. Matilda babysits for the dance (and, by the way, Matilda has bascically comandeered the baby. Andrea, at one point, says something to the effect of "if I weren't nursing I doubt I'd ever get to see my son" and in my opinion, this entire book could have been avoided if Matilda had had the forethought to adopt foster children) and the next day Scy and Leo are inseparable. Sigh. This book... I just... I was very disappointed in this book. I gave it two stars for the fact that there were very few grammatical errors (Mathin once gave Andrea the "roll" of housekeeper) and there were a few good ideas mixed in. Symbiots were okay and the mating practices of the Haunts were inventive to say the least. But the entire thing was a herald for domesticity and about women being complacent even when their situations demanded something other than pouting and sulking. The male characters were macho to the point of being virtual cavemen who thought they knew what was best for their women and the women were completely okay with all of this! The only original character with a veritable backbone was Leo and she was soon reigned in by all the scheming going on around her. I commend the author for getting this book out there, at least, because I know that the hardest part of being an author is writing and putting her work out to be judged. I don't mean to be harsh, but I do certainly mean to be honest and if my honesty is slightly blistering... well, so was this book for my corneas. Thank you, reader, for taking the time to blunder through my opinions. I hope that I can help steer some people in a different direction.