The Raugon are a species of four-armed, armor-plated aliens from the planet Raug that have recently begun rescuing humans from a dying earth, placing them in Raugon homes to work and live as companions and servants. But are these aliens really their saviors, or captors? And are their humans truly companions, or slaves? These are some of the questions asked by Mx. Alex’s Rescue.
Our point-of-view character is Kipexo, a member of the aforementioned Raugon and a battle-wounded soldier recently removed from active duty. Unable to fully care for himself due to his leg injury, he is encouraged to adopt one a human to assist him around the house, and is paired with our other main character, Ethan. Though the two are bristly at first, they soon learn they have more in common than they realize. Without revealing any spoilers, I want to applaud Alex for the representation these characters bring to the genre.
One thing I will say that I liked right off the bat is that the story is told from the perspective of the dominant character, Kipexo, rather than the submissive, Ethan. This is not all that common in the romance and erotica genres, and as a dominant myself, is one I enjoyed connecting and identifying with. The author, Mx. Alex is also a dominant, and I really appreciated being able to read the story through their lens.
The erotica is well written and builds up nicely over the course of the book. As all Raugon prefer their sex kinky, so are all our sex scenes. The author goes above and beyond to make consent between the two characters clear, by having Kipexo explain safewords and other BDSM best practices before each scene. At times this did seem to almost make the scenes drag a bit, having to re-establish consent at the start each time, but I understand the importance of showing this to the audience.
I did feel like there was something of a missed opportunity in the story. I am not in any way trying to imply that things are not fully consensual between Kipexo and Ethan. However, were this scenario real, then it truly could not be consensual. When Kipexo meets Ethan, he has been beaten and abused at his previous Raugon homes, and we are told a much worse fate could await him should things continue to go poorly. Though I do not doubt Kipexo’s intentions for a second, I could not shake the idea that as Ethan does not know or fully trust Kipexo, he could have only agreed out of fear of reprisal. I would have appreciated the two characters talking about this at some point, or at least Kipexo acknowledging it, if only just to put some of the audience’s minds at ease.
Sadly one, another thing that was also lacking in the story was worldbuilding. For a sci-fi novel, I had hoped for a bit more description of the settings and the characters, ways to show the differences between life on Raug and Earth. We do get nice details on what our characters look like, as well as their feathery pet Dex, but other than that, things are described in a very human fashion, if at all. Because of that and the way human names are used for everything, it left me painting a mental picture of essentially a place just like earth, but with aliens and spaceships.
While the major focus of the story is obviously on the developing relationship of our main characters, there is also a fully developed plotline running throughout the book. I love when my porn comes with a good story, and I was happy when my feelings that there was something deeper going on beneath the surface at the start paid off. The book does end on something of a cliffhanger; though we gain the answers to many of our questions, there are still a few revelations dangled just out of reach at the end. The sequel, Surrender, is already out, and I am looking forward to reading more. Thank you, Mx. Alex!