Oh boy. What a ride.

This is my first foray into SF erotica, so I'm going to refrain from rating it. It's also not the type of romance I usually go for, but between the hype and the beautiful new cover for the special edition--and the free trial of Kindle Unlimited I have until the end of next month--I figured I should try this.

As far as the romance goes, I didn't hate it; in fact, it's oddly compelling. Rather than being a total alpha asshole who tries to control his love interest, Vektal primarily seems concerned about keeping Georgie alive, safe, and comfortable and mostly just tries to be available to support her. There's also more agency and consent than some of the other "fated mates" tropes I've seen (aside from when

Vektal wakes a sleeping Georgie by aggressively eating her out; that was rough for me to read

--sure, he wants Georgie to accept the khui and live with him on his planet forever, but ultimately it's her choice.

Unfortunately, this theme of consent doesn't extend to the beginning of the book. There's some early sexual assault that happens on the ship before Georgie and the others land on Vektal's planet, and the way Ruby Dixon portrays this trauma is cruel and unhealthy.

Dominique, the girl who is raped by the aliens transporting the women, "goes nuts" and disappears into the snowy abyss, only to be found later by Georgie. This implies that, if you've been raped, you might as well die rather than deal with it, and Dixon's trigger warning in the introduction to this book doesn't excuse this problematic way of thinking.

Overall, the world-building and romance are both surprisingly balanced, so aside from some deeply violent and terrible instances that happen at the beginning of the book, I kind of enjoyed this. Would I read the million sequels? I might give them a try in 2023...