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nickierkt's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
kelsey3's review
3.0
Overall: 3.3
Book Breakdown —
Characters: I connected to them emotionally, but their development was so fast that they weren’t as complex as they could have been. Plus, the characters were extremely predictable which didn’t help their depth either. But considering the fast development and simple characterization, I still connected to them well enough .
Pacing/ length: extremely fast, but I knew what I was getting into and actually enjoyed that aspect of the book.
Interesting Plot?: yes. There were some pretty unrealistic plot lines but it was interesting if you just roll with it. This book needed many rounds of edits (for both grammar and content) but there was a wonderful, raw story underneath the things that needed to be corrected.
Reading Medium: ebook.
Spice (?/5): 1.4; there wasn’t a lot, especially given the way it was advertised. Only a couple of scenes of smut before it turns to fade-to-black scenes. This was a bit of a letdown given the marketing of the book.
Detailed Review—
I picked up this book because I was looking for something light and simple; something that would give me a break from books with complicated, heavy plot lines and characters. I wanted something that was spicy and very easy to read, and this book delivered for the most part. Plus, I‘ll admit, I genuinely enjoyed reading it, even though it needed a few rounds of heavy editing.
To start, let’s talk about the most glaring mistake of all, the lack of editing; this is including, but not limited to, all of the following: Spelling, grammar, sentence structure, name changes, tense issues, incorrect verb/noun/pronoun usage, misuse of words, punctuation errors, & a multitude of other mistakes. One example — of many — was using the word “transaction” where the word “contraction” should have been. I understand some mistakes here and there, especially for a self published novel, but it was so ample that it made me think the rough draft was the same as the published draft.
In addition, I often had to piece together what a sentence was saying by either adding or dropping words. For example, many sentences were missing words; some were more extreme than others. In the following example I highlighted a small pronoun that was missing in the original sentence by framing it in brackets and italics; all further examples will be formatted this way to demonstrate where the error was:
or
or
The lack of editing forced me to take some stars away from the rating, even though I was able to overlook the errors and enjoy it anyway.
Moving on, this book suffers from Insta love. I knew that was going to happen before I started reading so I wasn’t bothered by it, but if that trope typically irritates you, then I suggest passing on this entire series.
Also, I picked up this book expecting to read more smutty scenes than it actually had. There were two or three smutty scenes but after the initial couple of scenes, it was mostly fade-to-black from there on out. Not going to lie, that was disappointing.
One world building aspect that had me questioning things a few times was the men to women ratio on the alien planet. 200 men to 1 woman. If that was the case, who was giving birth to all of these males? It would have made sense if a recent infection had wiped out most of the females, but this uneven ratio had been going on for centuries so it just didn’t make sense. Perhaps the aliens had extraordinarily long lifetimes, which spanned hundreds of years; that would account for the high male population and low females, but it was never clearly stated. There were also several instances in which the plot was a little unbelievable and you just had to nod your way through it. Once again, a round of content edits could have identified these problems and fixed them.
Despite my gripes with the book, I seriously couldn’t put it down. As I said earlier, underneath all of the editing errors, there was a rough and raw draft of a potentially fantastic story. It was clear even through the errors that this was a diamond in the rough; the plot had a shine to it, but the editing and writing needed some serious polishing. It’s basically up to the individual reader to decide if they can look past all of the errors to see the gem beneath or not.
Ultimately, I enjoyed it greatly and finished it quickly. I even stayed up too late a few nights in a row to read it and thought about it during the day when I couldn’t read it. I enjoyed everything from the culture and politics of the alien world to the romance between Grim and Lisa. So even though there were some problems with this book, I liked it quite a bit which is why I rated it the way I did; better edited books haven’t always held my attention as much as this one did and I have to give it props for that. If the author can find a good editor, she has real potential in this genre.
Character List—
Note: many of the character in Ynyr’s book overlaps with this book, but the characters listed below are all major players in Grim’s.
Lisa: Earth female and FMC. Queen of Luda. Joined with Grim. Was married to the human Mark who died of cancer a few years prior to the start of the book. Has two daughters with Mark — Carly & Miki. Pregnant with Grims child. Is the defacto leader of the other earth females. Loves Grim.
Grim: Tornian alien and MMC. When he was a teenager he was attacked by many warriors and was scarred; the thick scars run down his face, neck, shoulder, and chest. He killed all his attackers and survived, but the scars mark him as unworthy in his culture. He reluctantly lead the mission to earth to get their females. King of Luda. Joined with Lisa by offering to return to earth and accept and protect her offspring; he initially made this deal in an attempt to solidify his place as king because having a woman in your house solidified power in their culture. Didn’t realize that Lisa’s children were also females; no other alien offered to do the same thing because they assumed that Lisa’s offspring were male, but when they were discovered to be female, Grim’s power grew threefold, as did his love. Brother of Emperor Wray. Adopted Lisa’s daughters. Expecting a child with Lisa. Loves Lisa and their children, adopted and biological.
Wray: Emperor. Joined with Kim. Father of Destiny. Brother of Grim. Becomes a father to destiny in this book. Loves Kim and Destiny.
Kim: Empress. Joined with Wray. Mother of Destiny. Gives birth to Destiny in this book. Loves Wray and Destiny.
Callen: A captain in Grims guard who is proclaimed lord of his own house by Emperor Wray. He seems to be in love with one of the earth females named Rebecca. But he must go rule his own house and hope that she eventually chooses him to join with. His book has not been published as of this review, though his story was left open ended.
Ynyr: Third male of Oryon and Isis. He takes a lot of flak for his mothers choice to stay with their father. Proclaimed Lord of his own territory by Emperor Wray, which shocks many considering he is a third male and is traditionally looked down on; he is tasked to rule the territory once ruled by the evil Bertos. Was chosen by earth female Abby to join with. Is in love with her. His story is book 3 in the series.
Abby: Earth female. Chose Ynyr to join with. Is in love with him. Her story is book 3 in the series.
Memorable Quotes—
“Laws or justice, Grim? Because they can be two very different things.”
- Lisa
“I want to talk to him, he’s not innocent Grim, but that doesn’t make him guilty either.”
- Lisa
Summary—
Lisa Millar visits her husband’s grave and is kidnapped by aliens to be brought back to their home and married to one of their males so the alien race can continue, as an infection wiped out most of the females on their planet; however, she is not entirely unattached, she has two children left behind on earth who she refuses to leave behind.
Knowing that he will never be seen as a fit and worthy male because of his scars — which he received when he was young by being attacked by a group of warriors whom he killed — he makes a deal with the earth female who has children from another man. He needs a female to help him secure his throne because House Bertos wants to topple him and take over his house, the House of Luda. He strikes a deal with the earth female Lisa in which he agrees to take her back to earth to retrieve her offspring and vows to accept and protect them if she agrees to join with him and only him. She agrees and they retrieve her offspring — 2 daughters. He is shocked that the earth female had 2 daughters, he expected the offspring to be sons and knows that once they return to his home planet, he will be challenged, for he now has 3 females in his grasp, thus elevating his status and power even more.
King Grim Vasteri never expected Lisa and her girls to be such a gift to him and never plans on letting anyone hurt them, or let them go. As Lisa and Grim fall in love, they learn how to navigate their differing cultures and belief systems. Lisa turns the house of Luda into a more homey environment and makes all of the guards feel important. She also talks to the males, which helps break the stigma that females are superior and males are expendable.
Meanwhile House Bertos ambushes Grim’s estate. They plan on kidnapping Lisa’s daughters. They also plan on attacking Lisa and framing Grim for her attack so that she and the children are taken away from him permanently and he is stripped of his title as King. In order to save her children, Lisa tells them to climb a tree while she distracts the attackers. They attack her, giving her bruises and tearing her clothes, but Grim interrupts the attack, kills most of them — leaving a few alive and injured to garner information from — and rescues Lisa.
House Bertos challenges Grim and makes him bring Lisa and her daughters to the joining ceremony where the rest of the women are supposed to choose males to join with. Since being with Grimm, Lisa learns all of the ends and outs of Tornian law. She learns how she and the other women can avoid having to participate in the joining ceremony. All she has to do is choose Grimm; plus at this point she is already pregnant with his child and announces it in front of the entire assembly. Given this, there is no room to argue; she has chosen to be his and no one can stop that from happening because not only is she pregnant with his child, but she has made the choice to be with solely him very well known. All the while, she drops hints in front of the other women that they have the right to refuse all of the presented males in the joining ceremony and instead request protection under the house of Luda. When the women understand the hint, they request protection under the house of Luda and Grim agrees to protect them all.
During the assembly, it is also revealed that house Bertos has committed many atrocities over the years in an attempt to steal the throne from Grim and his brother, Wray, including: sending Warriors all of those years ago to kill Grim which ultimately
scarred him for life, killing Wray’s first empress and son, scaring the earth females about the joining ceremony, and altering the educators of the females from earth so that they didn’t understand the laws of Tornian so they would essentially be forced to join with a male.
Bertos and his house are all killed for their treason, along with one of his allies houses. In turn, Bertos’ house is awarded to Ynyr and the allies house is awarded to Callen. Lisa returns home with the women from earth, her children, and grim and celebrates her pregnancy with her family.
Book Breakdown —
Characters: I connected to them emotionally, but their development was so fast that they weren’t as complex as they could have been. Plus, the characters were extremely predictable which didn’t help their depth either. But considering the fast development and simple characterization, I still connected to them well enough .
Pacing/ length: extremely fast, but I knew what I was getting into and actually enjoyed that aspect of the book.
Interesting Plot?: yes. There were some pretty unrealistic plot lines but it was interesting if you just roll with it. This book needed many rounds of edits (for both grammar and content) but there was a wonderful, raw story underneath the things that needed to be corrected.
Reading Medium: ebook.
Spice (?/5): 1.4; there wasn’t a lot, especially given the way it was advertised. Only a couple of scenes of smut before it turns to fade-to-black scenes. This was a bit of a letdown given the marketing of the book.
Detailed Review—
I picked up this book because I was looking for something light and simple; something that would give me a break from books with complicated, heavy plot lines and characters. I wanted something that was spicy and very easy to read, and this book delivered for the most part. Plus, I‘ll admit, I genuinely enjoyed reading it, even though it needed a few rounds of heavy editing.
To start, let’s talk about the most glaring mistake of all, the lack of editing; this is including, but not limited to, all of the following: Spelling, grammar, sentence structure, name changes, tense issues, incorrect verb/noun/pronoun usage, misuse of words, punctuation errors, & a multitude of other mistakes. One example — of many — was using the word “transaction” where the word “contraction” should have been. I understand some mistakes here and there, especially for a self published novel, but it was so ample that it made me think the rough draft was the same as the published draft.
In addition, I often had to piece together what a sentence was saying by either adding or dropping words. For example, many sentences were missing words; some were more extreme than others. In the following example I highlighted a small pronoun that was missing in the original sentence by framing it in brackets and italics; all further examples will be formatted this way to demonstrate where the error was:
Because three ass holes broke in but I was able to protect myself, long enough, for you [to] arrive!
or
Who was the only one willing [to] get my girls from Earth when they were unprotected?
or
[His]Hehands slip under her gown
The lack of editing forced me to take some stars away from the rating, even though I was able to overlook the errors and enjoy it anyway.
Moving on, this book suffers from Insta love. I knew that was going to happen before I started reading so I wasn’t bothered by it, but if that trope typically irritates you, then I suggest passing on this entire series.
Also, I picked up this book expecting to read more smutty scenes than it actually had. There were two or three smutty scenes but after the initial couple of scenes, it was mostly fade-to-black from there on out. Not going to lie, that was disappointing.
One world building aspect that had me questioning things a few times was the men to women ratio on the alien planet. 200 men to 1 woman. If that was the case, who was giving birth to all of these males? It would have made sense if a recent infection had wiped out most of the females, but this uneven ratio had been going on for centuries so it just didn’t make sense. Perhaps the aliens had extraordinarily long lifetimes, which spanned hundreds of years; that would account for the high male population and low females, but it was never clearly stated. There were also several instances in which the plot was a little unbelievable and you just had to nod your way through it. Once again, a round of content edits could have identified these problems and fixed them.
Despite my gripes with the book, I seriously couldn’t put it down. As I said earlier, underneath all of the editing errors, there was a rough and raw draft of a potentially fantastic story. It was clear even through the errors that this was a diamond in the rough; the plot had a shine to it, but the editing and writing needed some serious polishing. It’s basically up to the individual reader to decide if they can look past all of the errors to see the gem beneath or not.
Ultimately, I enjoyed it greatly and finished it quickly. I even stayed up too late a few nights in a row to read it and thought about it during the day when I couldn’t read it. I enjoyed everything from the culture and politics of the alien world to the romance between Grim and Lisa. So even though there were some problems with this book, I liked it quite a bit which is why I rated it the way I did; better edited books haven’t always held my attention as much as this one did and I have to give it props for that. If the author can find a good editor, she has real potential in this genre.
Character List—
Note: many of the character in Ynyr’s book overlaps with this book, but the characters listed below are all major players in Grim’s.
Lisa: Earth female and FMC. Queen of Luda. Joined with Grim. Was married to the human Mark who died of cancer a few years prior to the start of the book. Has two daughters with Mark — Carly & Miki. Pregnant with Grims child. Is the defacto leader of the other earth females. Loves Grim.
Grim: Tornian alien and MMC. When he was a teenager he was attacked by many warriors and was scarred; the thick scars run down his face, neck, shoulder, and chest. He killed all his attackers and survived, but the scars mark him as unworthy in his culture. He reluctantly lead the mission to earth to get their females. King of Luda. Joined with Lisa by offering to return to earth and accept and protect her offspring; he initially made this deal in an attempt to solidify his place as king because having a woman in your house solidified power in their culture. Didn’t realize that Lisa’s children were also females; no other alien offered to do the same thing because they assumed that Lisa’s offspring were male, but when they were discovered to be female, Grim’s power grew threefold, as did his love. Brother of Emperor Wray. Adopted Lisa’s daughters. Expecting a child with Lisa. Loves Lisa and their children, adopted and biological.
Wray: Emperor. Joined with Kim. Father of Destiny. Brother of Grim. Becomes a father to destiny in this book. Loves Kim and Destiny.
Kim: Empress. Joined with Wray. Mother of Destiny. Gives birth to Destiny in this book. Loves Wray and Destiny.
Callen: A captain in Grims guard who is proclaimed lord of his own house by Emperor Wray. He seems to be in love with one of the earth females named Rebecca. But he must go rule his own house and hope that she eventually chooses him to join with. His book has not been published as of this review, though his story was left open ended.
Ynyr: Third male of Oryon and Isis. He takes a lot of flak for his mothers choice to stay with their father. Proclaimed Lord of his own territory by Emperor Wray, which shocks many considering he is a third male and is traditionally looked down on; he is tasked to rule the territory once ruled by the evil Bertos. Was chosen by earth female Abby to join with. Is in love with her. His story is book 3 in the series.
Abby: Earth female. Chose Ynyr to join with. Is in love with him. Her story is book 3 in the series.
Memorable Quotes—
“Laws or justice, Grim? Because they can be two very different things.”
- Lisa
“I want to talk to him, he’s not innocent Grim, but that doesn’t make him guilty either.”
- Lisa
Summary—
Lisa Millar visits her husband’s grave and is kidnapped by aliens to be brought back to their home and married to one of their males so the alien race can continue, as an infection wiped out most of the females on their planet; however, she is not entirely unattached, she has two children left behind on earth who she refuses to leave behind.
Knowing that he will never be seen as a fit and worthy male because of his scars — which he received when he was young by being attacked by a group of warriors whom he killed — he makes a deal with the earth female who has children from another man. He needs a female to help him secure his throne because House Bertos wants to topple him and take over his house, the House of Luda. He strikes a deal with the earth female Lisa in which he agrees to take her back to earth to retrieve her offspring and vows to accept and protect them if she agrees to join with him and only him. She agrees and they retrieve her offspring — 2 daughters. He is shocked that the earth female had 2 daughters, he expected the offspring to be sons and knows that once they return to his home planet, he will be challenged, for he now has 3 females in his grasp, thus elevating his status and power even more.
King Grim Vasteri never expected Lisa and her girls to be such a gift to him and never plans on letting anyone hurt them, or let them go. As Lisa and Grim fall in love, they learn how to navigate their differing cultures and belief systems. Lisa turns the house of Luda into a more homey environment and makes all of the guards feel important. She also talks to the males, which helps break the stigma that females are superior and males are expendable.
Meanwhile House Bertos ambushes Grim’s estate. They plan on kidnapping Lisa’s daughters. They also plan on attacking Lisa and framing Grim for her attack so that she and the children are taken away from him permanently and he is stripped of his title as King. In order to save her children, Lisa tells them to climb a tree while she distracts the attackers. They attack her, giving her bruises and tearing her clothes, but Grim interrupts the attack, kills most of them — leaving a few alive and injured to garner information from — and rescues Lisa.
House Bertos challenges Grim and makes him bring Lisa and her daughters to the joining ceremony where the rest of the women are supposed to choose males to join with. Since being with Grimm, Lisa learns all of the ends and outs of Tornian law. She learns how she and the other women can avoid having to participate in the joining ceremony. All she has to do is choose Grimm; plus at this point she is already pregnant with his child and announces it in front of the entire assembly. Given this, there is no room to argue; she has chosen to be his and no one can stop that from happening because not only is she pregnant with his child, but she has made the choice to be with solely him very well known. All the while, she drops hints in front of the other women that they have the right to refuse all of the presented males in the joining ceremony and instead request protection under the house of Luda. When the women understand the hint, they request protection under the house of Luda and Grim agrees to protect them all.
During the assembly, it is also revealed that house Bertos has committed many atrocities over the years in an attempt to steal the throne from Grim and his brother, Wray, including: sending Warriors all of those years ago to kill Grim which ultimately
scarred him for life, killing Wray’s first empress and son, scaring the earth females about the joining ceremony, and altering the educators of the females from earth so that they didn’t understand the laws of Tornian so they would essentially be forced to join with a male.
Bertos and his house are all killed for their treason, along with one of his allies houses. In turn, Bertos’ house is awarded to Ynyr and the allies house is awarded to Callen. Lisa returns home with the women from earth, her children, and grim and celebrates her pregnancy with her family.
klaire09's review
2.0
Meh
This took me a good minute to get through as I’m not a fan of insta love. The universe was pretty cool but it was a lot of politics within the worlds and not enough love story.
This took me a good minute to get through as I’m not a fan of insta love. The universe was pretty cool but it was a lot of politics within the worlds and not enough love story.
jetenold's review
5.0
I highly enjoyed the audible copy. It included multiple narrators as well as background audio that really brought the story to life.
Audible copy - 11-18-19
Audible copy - 11-18-19
ashkwtf's review
I actually would have bought this for 99c. However at $3.99 and with 400+ editing errors in the sample alone, I could not justify it. It seemed like a fun premise and I enjoyed the characters otherwise.