First he will examine her. Then he will breed her.
For Sonya, the most shameful thing about being captured by a huge, alarmingly sexy alien isn't being strapped to a table completely nude with her bare bottom still burning from a spanking.
Nor is it being led through his ship wearing only a leash and collar, or even having her quivering naked body probed and examined in ways more humiliating than she could have ever imagined.
It's that he's testing her suitability for breeding... and she's about to come really, really hard.
Publisher's Alien's Captive includes spankings and sexual scenes. If such material offends you, please don't buy this book.
Wavering between 3 and 4, and opting to round up because it was very readable.
Alien's Captive is a simple sci-fi romance that takes place over a few hours, perhaps days. Captain Sonya is part of an investigatory mission to inspect the coordinates of a missing crew's last known signal. She decides to step off the ship to investigate which is when she gets hunted down by an inhabitant of the planet, Rychor.
The planet Ryvokia has been harvesting life forms that probe their planet to replicate, due to a scarcity of Ryvokian females of breeding age. Despite the edgy dark cover and the explicit breeding theme, Ryvokian society is interesting. Although they keep "vessels" naked to show their status, the one Ryvokian female we meet seems to be the leader, and whose emotions the other men are sensitive to and strive to balance. The aliens are not dark or depraved. They seem more intellectual and advanced, so the medical examinations do not show cruelty or sadistic tendencies.
I think I was on board with Sonya in getting curious about their society worked. The worldbuilding was interesting, and I only have a question of: if these species are advanced, I wonder why they did not find some scientific breakthrough to create more Ryvokian women who can breed, but this story is not deep worldbuilding. Just enough to set up the medical examination scenes!
Another thing that surprised me was how humourous it could be. Not just Sonya but also Rychor. There are some funny fish-out-water observations from both of them about each other's ways.
I also liked the tension between Sonya and Rychor. Sonya was immediately attracted, but Rychor was much more elusive. He was more proper and professional, which made reading his POVs helpful in showing he also felt a pull towards Sonya. For all the nudity and physical stimulation tests, I felt their small exchanges here and there much more meaningful.
I stumbled across this one by accident and came upon a world of fantastic characters that I couldn’t wait to see find their HEA. The author created a advanced society, but left them with the edge of pain and pleasure to enhance the story. Be warned, this one is super steamy and fogged up glasses may be the end result. I enjoyed seeing this story unfold and I found myself glued to the edge of my seat as the two cultures started to meld together. The author is brand new to me, but I can’t wait to read the rest of the books in her library.
Rychor (H), a Rykovia male, captures Sonya (h) while she’s on a mission to explore a planet where a previous crew disappeared. Sonya soon finds herself undergoing intensive and extensive humiliations as she’s prepared to enter the Rykovia breeding program. But as Sonya questions her treatment, Rychor continues his punishment of her even as he struggles with his growing attraction to Sonya and his desire to keep her for himself. Lots of hot sexy potent action, including spanking, whipping, rough play and a lot of pleasure enhanced by pain. It's an intense somewhat dark relationship but still a pleasurable read.
Sonya was too inquisitive lol like to the point of annoyance. Plus they had these unfinished or blabbering sentences so many times that it got repetitive.
Steam-2/3 the actual sex scenes(2 small ones) were not descriptive but the discipline was.
This story had the makings of being so good, but there was so much that didn’t really work. This review is most likely going to be all over the place. Forgive me and there will be spoiler talk:
First of all, Sonya was not that interesting. Since we spend so much time in her head (two thirds of the book) it’s imperative that she be someone we can connect with. She isn’t. I do understand this is ultimately an erotic book, but for me, I need more than just dom/sub spanking and humiliation to enjoy a story. Sonya was frankly annoying- her reactions were just strange and if I had to see the phrase “she’s different” again I was going to scream. She was “different” because she asked questions and didn’t cry. Um what?
Honestly that’s what made her seem kinda ridiculous to me and just made me want to speed through the book. Why couldn’t the kidnapping a-hole aliens show some sort of connection to the humans they forced into being baby machines? It’s a common trope in the alien/sci-fi romance genre that humans are just seen as broodmares but this was just … creepy. The couple times we ended up in Rychor’s mind were better than being in Sonya’s mind but only barely.
Though at least in his mind the entire situation had more “heart”. His conflict was so much more interesting than Sonya’s “questions” or her desire to be spanked.
In the end, she’s supposedly in love with Rychor but that’s not really shown. In fact I can say with complete certainty that I don’t think she is. She’s in lust with him for sure. But love? That’s a stretch and it’s a stretch because the story doesn’t allow them to get close or really bond. The conclusion also felt rushed. One moment Rychor’s telling her to run for her life, the next he is led into a room by the person he doesn’t trust- cause Sonya came to them (the aliens that only see her as a vessel for baby making) and together (without Rychor) she and the head female in charge work it out… (off page. So we don’t get that confrontation)
I just wished for more. I know this writer can do that too because I’ve read other books by her. This just wasn’t it.
This just wasn’t what I was hoping for. I was disappointed in the lack of story. The whole reason Sonya was there is never wrapped up and her copilot never returns. Things with Rychor weren’t very developed either. The spicy scenes were good, but overall disappointing. After thinking for a bit, I also noticed that something consistent throughout the book that bothered me was the “she’s not like other girls” attitude. That was mostly Rychor comparing her to other human women, but it was consistent and really off-putting.
Humiliation and Punishment is the thread running through this short-term to be avoided.
I never give up on a story once I've started it, but I trudged through this appalling mess of characters. Every page was about humiliating and punishing the female, Sonya, who had landed on their planet and had been captured. This was to force her to agree to copulating with one of their species who apart from being excessively tall, we're look a like humans. No imagination there. Worse to come was that Sonya was enjoying it! What was this author thinking? I lost the plot three quarters of the way through and skipped chunks I have to confess. I shudder to think of this author writes another like it.
Wow. I wanted to like it and did at the start. But the lack of a real plot, the lack of connections between the MCs and the bizarre, and unexplained leaps in storyline killed this one.
The MCs were truly in lust. And as this is a mostly spanking story along with a healthy dose of humiliation, you catch the drift of that lust. There's a just stupid, endless drumbeat of admiration for the FL because she asks a lot of questions and won't immediately capitulate to every tiny statement of the ML. The author keeps finding ways to inject the statement that the FL is "different" although there's nothing that makes her so. It's sort of Twilight-like, and simply ridiculous. The bar seems set dang low for a good female lead when that's all that does it.
The ML is an automaton of a dude with the requisite enormous size and equipment to match. He likes to tell the female lead to "calm down" which is a fricking hard NO for me under any circumstances, so i hated him for that right off the bat. He and the others like him are under the authority of the only female in their pod, and his anger at that simmers with a patriarchal righteousness that i found ironic as hell. However, we're told this method of stealing other races for forced procreation is all to try to save their dying race because their females are scarce and fertility issues blah blah blah. Yup, just about that interesting because the backstory is virtually nonexistent. Like where did this species come from? Were they always living in this underground cave system? How come they can't produce more females? Why is the lone female alien calling all the shots? We never know because the author doesn't tell us, nor do the characters.
Oh yeah, they also captured a previous crew of humans who are now bred and mated to others. But there's no mention of them later in the story. That missing crew was the reason for the female lead's presence, yet that gets dropped in favor of the frequent humiation and spanking/whipping scenes and faux insta-love that appears close to the end.
Suddenly, the story changes outside the actual story. Readers aren't privy to what prompted the lone alien female to suddenly and greatly change her entire personality and decide on a new, gentler way for her race to move forward. Suddenly all is well, the leads are in love, the head female alien (formerly a vicious, petulant Nurse Ratchett kinda gal) is living a new, softer life and is best friends with the female lead. Oh, and the two leads are totally on love, making pancakes together and talking about the baby soon to be born. There are no explanations of these changes, just the text that tells us we're there. Did the female lead contact her ship? Did she find out anything about the original.lost crew she was sent to find? What took place between her and the lead female alien that so changed the trajectory of everything? WTAF?
I don't know what kind of story this author was trying to tell. If it was even just a spanking/humiliation story, it fell pretty flat. If it was to be something deeper, which it started out as, it fell flat with a heavy thud. A ton of lost opportunities here. I doubt I could weather the frustrations of another book like this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
1/5 stars My first impression of Sonya was that she was both stupid and a layman's interpretation of what they think a curious scientist is, instead of what an actual curious scientist is. More Timothy Treadwell in grizzly man, than an actual intellectual. Midway through she's just weak willed and gives into her desires so easily it's alarming. Also the implications of "well your body enjoyed it so it's OK for me to do it to you" is gross paired with the classic "well you do have an option we can either beat you until you say yes or just say yes, thus giving us full consent! 😃 " is so beyond stupid that it's baffling. Why make them rapey but at the same time jump through all manner of hoops to justify it? And somehow try to pass this off as okay?? Just make the rapist aliens rapists, and let's move on. Actually no one more thing, I don't understand how these aliens know so much about humans but not why they wouldn't feel comfortable sharing intimate sexual fantasies with strangers....😐 sir. Anyboohoo.
Most people with the kinks she has would not react the way she does to a non consensual version of those acts. The BDSM community actively hates books like these because they portray their lifestyle in such a toxic way. But what can you really expect from a porno cosplaying as a work of literature. Actual sense, human emotions, or actions don't work in pornville. Real life toxic ideas do however always make an appearance. Like " she's not like the other girls," but instead of ending at that trashy cliche we extend it to add, "She's ACTUALLY smart (though she hasn't really done anything remotely intelligent), so when we rape her she rebels more! She's better than the other ones we beat into sumbission! She's so special! She's an icon!😍😍" because she asked a question or two??? Also the idea that most I'd any woman would give up not only their bodies but their children to be raised in this dumbass society is not really believable to me. But again porno plots don't have to make sense.
So far my critiques have all been about theme but the writing is just as bad as anything I've mentioned so far. Why is it that being on a platform that is being raised needs a paragraph to describe it? And in the most convoluted way you could possibly do it? "Just as she lifted her head, something strange began to happen, and her sense of gravity turned upside-down as vertigo gripped her. It was momentarily difficult to align what she was seeing with what she thought to be true, until she realized that the ground beneath her was rising from the floor,..." mofo the platform she was strapped to was raising she wasn't going to space or entering 0 gravity. She was basically on an elevating platform why did this need a full paragraph? And this author does not know how to write confusion due to a sudden movement without the use of the word "vertigo". Trip? vertigo. Stub your toe? vertigo. Get picked up by an alien? Well no duhh. vertigo. Or "she wasn't sure who started it" proceeds to describe exactly who started it and what they did ti start it. Like?? Girl get a new editor. 🤨
nowadays i'm always turning to an alien romance to get out of a reading slump 😂 but gosh this was almost a DNF for me because of the public humiliation that Sonya had to go through. and Rychor said "consent" from Sonya is needed to impregnate her, but also said he will continue to dish out punishments and training to "encourage" her to give her consent, should she continue to refuse. what a confusing alien species.
otherwise, i liked the overall plot and was hooked enough on the story to finish reading this through the wee hours of the morning. can't believe i'm quite into the alien fated mates trope now. and at the end with Rychor and his confession to Sonya in the waters?! loved that 😍
“I would burn the rivers of this planet before I would let harm come to you or my progeny.”
This was one of those books that had great potential, but was very poorly executed. Sonya is captured by the alien Rychor to be used as an incubator for his races offspring. The problems started right away. Sonya was a one dimensional, bland lead character. I had no connection to her at all. Rychor was confused and frankly confusing to me. The book plodded along with little real sizzle, action, drama, or anything else of appeal. Disappointing, but since this is the first book Ive read by Samantha Madisen and there is a good selection of her titles on Kindle Unlimited, I'll try another and hope's much, much better.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
This book has an interesting storyline. It’s a new planet of people that need to find other beings to breed as they do not have enough females. The scenes with the two main characters were how the author revealed the people that Rychor belonged. He was actually the one to capture Sonia, the human female. Usually they treated the other being as entities, and it was that way for Sonia at first but Sonia touched Rychor in a way that he could not expect and their interactions changed him. It’s a good read. I was curious about where exactly the other females were located or how were returned after their service, but that part was not explained in the story. Read On!
I enjoyed this story very much. I loved the storyline and the interaction between Rychor and Sonya was really fun. Rychor is a Dom and he goes pretty deep into the character. I enjoyed the pain and pleasure that strengthen the storyline. The story includes spankings and hot sex scenes. I love an alien that is passionate and dominant. I enjoyed the story very much.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
This book definitely could be a series. I found myself extremely curious about the “technological” advances this culture had. I also wanted to know more about the other characters. It does have a HEA and no cliffhanger, but….While I had some minor concerns about the gaps it left me wanting more…
Another unique tale from Samantha Madisen. A super sexy read with all the emotions. Of course there is punishment and discipline but that's what makes it such fun to read.
this book was actually decently well written so i was invested, but the ending went downhill so fast and there really wasn't any good smut for payoff. at this point if you've read one alien romance you've read them all, so i'm still waiting to be wowed.
This is the first book i have read by this author, and i was incredibly impressed. She has created a world that is interesting and fascinating! I had a hard time putting it down to work!
I dnf-ed this one. Humiliation just isn't my thing. I kind of want to see where the stoic male lead will end up and how they'll end up together, but I'm just bored and annoyed by almost every interaction being based on humiliation. I am sure others will love this. Just not me.