AUTHOR: Nina Merrill
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Heat
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 20k)
GENRE: Fantasy erotic romance
COST: $5.00
A weaver who recognizes her womanly wiles. A father who drunkenly tells the king his daughter can weave gold from straw. A horny goblin. It’s Rumpelstiltskin for the erotic romance market.
I read the excerpt for this out of curiosity more than anything else. I’ve read a few fairy tales gone adult, and I wasn’t entirely sure how this could be anything new. The excerpt was in first person, from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view, as he watched Bella get it on with the captain of the king’s guard. And I thought, Damn. This is going to be all voyeuristic. I gotta get me some of that.
Well, the excerpt was a tad misleading.
The author switches between two perspectives, both told in 1st person. First is the heroine, Bella, the miller’s daughter, who’s being held by the king because her oh so wonderful father bragged about her being able to turn straw into gold. Bella is a bit of a slut, all too aware of her feminine wiles, all too willing to use them to get whatever she wants. I can’t really blame her for much of it; after all, if she doesn’t make this gold, she’s going to get killed. If my choices were flirting or death, I’d be flashing my cleavage at anybody remotely interested, too.
The other perspective is Rumpelstiltskin, and he is one horny little devil. Sometimes, ickily so. His first demand for payment from Bella is the chance to suckle milk from her breasts, and when he doesn’t get that (not from lack of trying on his part), he settles for jerking off while watching her with the captain (the excerpt I had read). We’re not meant to like Rumpelstiltskin, I’m pretty sure, and it’s pretty easy to be a tad repulsed by him. But when half the story is told from his POV, it’s difficult for some of those feelings not to carry over into Bella’s sections, especially when she’s slutting it up.
That lowers my overall appreciation for the fun in this story. I would have been more than happy to hear the whole thing from our horny goblin’s POV, or just Bella’s. The sex is reasonably hot, and while some of her metaphors – keeping with the fantasy spirit/escapism of the whole thing – don’t work for me, I can overlook them to simply have fun. But don’t read this for the romance. That is most definitely not its strength.
| Readability | 8/10 – Varying 1st person POV’s actually isn’t that jarring once it’s established, though some of her metaphors are a little unfortunate |
| Hero | 4/10 – It’s a fairy tale. Since when does the hero really have a personality? |
| Heroine | 6/10 – Spunky with a side of slut. |
| Entertainment value | 6/10 – Parts of it were hugely entertaining, others highly uncomfortable |
| World building | 8/10 – For rewriting a fairy tale, the details worked for me. |
| TOTAL: | 32/50 |
No comments:
Post a Comment