I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand the author creates a meticulous and believable world and I do believe in the love between the main protagonists. The writing is good enough to keep you reading without any of those glaring errors like poor editing or characterization. On the other hand, the author makes what amounts to me as the cardinal sin in the romance genre--she grants more pages to the heroine's sexual escapades with other men. This includes outright rape, subjugation, and questionable consent. I don't want to read about any of that! When I pick up a romance novel I'm not interested in reading about the in depth sexual slavery of the heroine. I don't need the romance to be fluffy, but I'd like to come away from the story feeling happy, not somewhat creeped out. And this story had many creepy elements (and not in the Halloween-cool sense, but in the pedophile-next-door kind of way).

So 3 stars from me. The writing is good and the fantasy plotline interesting. What little romance there is in the story is written poignantly. I just hated the three quarters of the novel that is gratuitously permeated with the sexual depravity, slavery, and other vices of the human condition.

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