The Deviant Underground

Time Bandit #1

by Elisabeth Roseland

Even with the ability to Stop Time, you still can Run Out of it.

Kathryn should be institutionalized or incarcerated.

That’s what happens to deviants - people born with unusual abilities. And if the government knew she can teleport and stop time, she can say good bye to her freedom. Not that her life is all that great anyway. Her inability to control her "gifts" forces her to keep everyone at a distance. Few friends. No meaningful romantic relationships. Until Susan introduces her to Charge, that is.

When the 6’4” guy with the caramel-colored skin and million-watt smile shows up at her door, she lets her guard down. What she discovers is that her best friend and her new lover have gifts of their own, and there’s an entire underground network of undetected deviants living freely in society. Kathryn’s brought into the fold with open arms, and she’s finally found something she’s never had - a family.

But now, people are disappearing. Some come back weeks later with strange scars, sutured wounds, and missing limbs, with no memory of what happened. Some don’t come back at all. Kathryn agrees to help investigate the kidnappings, although she can barely teleport without puking.

When Charge becomes the next victim, Kathryn is willing to teleport to the edge of the world to find him, stomach be damned. But confronting the mastermind behind the kidnappings puts her life in jeopardy. And when her rescue attempt goes horribly wrong, she wonders if dying might have been a better idea.

302 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Elisabeth Roseland spends her days dreaming up ways to throw sexy heroes and strong heroines together. Her characters explore the wonderful, agonizing, joyful, heartbreaking and complicated human experiences that are sex and love, with a little fantasy thrown in for good measure. She also hopes to inspire readers to grab the nearest consenting adult and do something fun. She lives in Chicago with her very own Happily Ever After.

Reviews

[mad mags · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Smutty X-Men

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic copy of this book for review through Library Thing's Member Giveaways program. Also, trigger warning for discussion of rape.)

Kathryn is a deviant. Along with one half of one percent of the human population, Kathryn shares genetic anomalies with the mentally ill; but instead of causing anxiety or depression, these deviations give her special gifts. Kathryn has the ability to teleport and freeze time, while other deviants can communicate with animals, control water vapor, exercise super-speed, levitate, read minds, even predict the future.

Rather than being hailed as super-heroes, deviants are rounded up, institutionalized and imprisoned, even experimented on and murdered. For this reason, Kathryn lives a life of quiet desperation. In order to keep her secret safe, she has few friends and zero social life. An English professor in St. Louis, Kathryn's days mainly involve grading student essays and trolling the library stacks. That is, until her one and only friend Susan introduces her to Sam ("Charge"), and the sparks fly - both figuratively and literally.

Unbeknownst to Kathryn, Susan and Charge are also deviants. Members of the Los Angeles deviant underground, their boss Jonathan sent them to St. Louis for the purpose of finding Kathryn and bringing her into the fold. After Kathryn's initial panic at being "outed" subsides, she finds herself welcoming this strange new family into her life - even as she tries to hold onto the remnants of her old existence in St. Louis. But when Charge - on a trip to NYC to heal the growing rift between the LA and NY deviant factions - goes missing, it's up to Kathryn and Susan to find and rescue him.

The Deviant Underground has a lot going for it: fun superpowers, a diverse cast of characters, colorful language, and more sex positivity than you can shake a vibrator at. It's like the Smutty X-Men, but not altogether in a bad way. When Kathryn isn't having sex - with herself or with others - she's fantasizing about having sex. She and Charge have a rather active and vibrant sex life, and Kathryn isn't ashamed about it in the least. Female masturbation is mentioned on several occasions (yay!). Granted, the sex is rather incidental to the story and might turn some readers off, but overall the scenes are well-written and fun. This is definitely a superhero story for the New Adult set.

I had a feeling early on that Kathryn and Susan would hook up - possibly in a polyamorous relationship involving Charge - and was rooting for it to happen all the way. But the way it happened, when it finally did? Super-problematic. Like, rape-problematic.

Susan's superpower is suggestibility: she's able to plant ideas in people's heads and make them see what she wants them to see. A pretty handy sex trick, since she can double herself at will, or change her form - or rather, other peoples' perception of her form - entirely. Cool if it's consensual; not so much if it's done deceptively. I think you can guess where I'm going with this, yes?

One night while Charge is still in NYC, Susan assumes his form and slips into bed with a very naked - and very drunk - Kathryn. Kathryn thinks she's making love to her boyfriend, but the next morning wakes up next to her best friend Susan. Upon learning that Susan raped her - because that's exactly what this is, rape - Kathryn's first reaction isn't, "Oh my god, how could you betray me like this?," but rather, "What will Charge say when he finds out that I slept with someone else?" Ugh.

But wait. There's more.

This isn't the first time Susan used her power to violate Kathryn. A few weeks prior - and with Charge's knowledge and help - Susan pretended to be Charge in order to rape Kathryn. While Charge watched from another room. The two then switched places so that the real Charge could have a go.

To recap: Kathryn's best friend raped her twice, and her boyfriend conspired to help rape her on one of those occasions.

Her reaction? After about 90 seconds of anger, Kathryn succumbs to Susan's victim-blaming and rape apologism (you're just so hot, I couldn't help myself; but you already rejected me once, and this was the only way!) and the two engage in consensual sex. Ugh, ugh, ugh, with a side of hell no.

I have had it up to my eyeballs with writers who normalize rape, even if it's "just" in a fantasy context. Rape is not sexy, edgy, or cool. Rape is not entertainment. Don't try to make it anything other than the violation it is. Just don't.

This was at the 76% point, and I damn near stopped reading right then and there. Since I still had some time to kill before bed, I powered through to 92% before retiring for the night. After that, I just couldn't bring myself to finish. This is my very first DNF (did not finish) - although, to be fair, I think it says less about the quality of the book than my dwindling patience for books I don't love (or at least like), books that haven't earned my time, books that just don't deserve to be read over the hundreds of others languishing in my to-read pile.

While the uber-problematic rape scene was the last straw, the truth is that the story was already dragging for me before the rape-that-shall-not-be-named transpired. (The word "rape" doesn't appear once in the entirety of the book.) Charge doesn't even go missing until 3/4 of the way into the story; up until that point, it's mostly drinking, fucking, clubbing, fucking, practicing, and fucking. The story really drags in the middle third, and I just didn't care enough about the characters to find out what happened in that last 8%.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2014/08/11/...

[Jeannie Zelos · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Deviant Underground, (Time Bandit series; book 1), Elisabeth Roseland
Review from jeannie zelos book reviews
I really enjoy paranormal romance and thought this sounded a real treat, something a bit different from the usual stories.
Well, it's true it was different, but it seemed an odd mix of YA style writing with some sex thrown in. I felt for Kathryn, she's kind of a loner and then Susan befriends her. Her boyfriend is a jerk and Susan encourgages her to drop him and date her friend Sam. That does happen after a while as she finds out the boyfreind has been cheating – then something happens between Susan and Sam (Charge – that's Sam's nckname) that made me uncomfortable, and made me look at the freindships differently.
The three friends carry on meeting for a while, and then Susan and Charge tell Kathryn that they too have abilities. Thats something Kathryn has always hidden – the law is strict, people with specail abilities are known as Deviants, villified, locked away for life and many people think they should be killed...so she's terrified. Distraught, scared and denies she has any talents at first. They finally persuade her it's safe to talk to them, and to join the network of other Deviants and her eyes are opened to the fact she's not alone – there are many, many more like her.
Of course danger follows them, Charge mysteriously disappears when on an assignment to meet another group of Deviants, and she and Susan encounter real danger in trying to find him.
The potential for this book was great, I can see just this happening in reality, people are scared of what they don't understand, and bigoted against anyone different. We see that already with race, religion and disability. I just felt it read really slowly though, nothing much seems to happen for ages, except for a couple of things I really didn't like!! Charge doesn't disappear til well over halfway into the book, and we really only hear briefly about the others with memory loss and odd things have happened. We assume its some kind of Gov project, but don't get an answer to why they get released back. With the law as it stands I'd have thought they were just killed* shrug*. Though I liked Kathryn she was odd at times, and as for Charge and Susan, there were things they did that I really wasn't happy about. Things friends don't do to another friend. As I said it reads to me like a YA book, with a very simplistic plot. I've enjoyed many YA books, that's not meant as a crit, but I like ones that have a bit more to the story. I felt this had lots of missed opportunities, and as for the sex, it wasn't necessary and seemed to be thrown in for the shock value, rather than because it added to the story. ( Not that it's particularly shocking or explicit, but it had an element that I was unhappy about – can't say what without giving too much away)
Stars: two – sorry, this book just didn't work for me.
ARC supplied via Netgalley.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book for me to review. I really enjoyed that that cast is multicultural, and that the main character is Black. However, that fact was far from obvious until late in the book, although I had some idea based on thoughts/comments early on. That being said, the main character seemed to switch from educated academic to neighborhood girl in language and behavior rather suddenly and without warning. It felt like an inconsistent personality and so I never felt I really got her as the heroine.

The book is about a young woman who is a junior faculty member at a college. She has magical abilities in a world where people who can do magic are demonized and taken away by the government. She is recruited by an underground group trying to make the country safe for the paranormals. In the process she endures some rather harsh training and has her eyes opened about the world around her and her own abilities.

She also finds love. The romance element is okay, but there is a scene early on in which the hero does something that made me uncomfortable. There are some unusual scenes later on as well (including with friends) that the heroine goes along with, but that I think are really immoral and a betrayal of trust. Since the heroine doesn't get upset, I went along with it, but my interpretation of events was certainly different.

There is plenty of action, once things get going. There are also some stupid actions by the leads--taking risks without knowing enough about the context. The book ends with much unresolved, but in a relatively safe place, so I wouldn't really call it a cliffhanger.

I received a copy in return for an honest review.

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.8 stars. I really liked the plot in this book. The imagination and creativity was great too. There characters were varied, as well as their 'talents'. I didn't really connect with them though, due to personal preference of some things. This was a really good book (minus a very few typos) and I would enjoy reading more in the series. The intrigue was done well, however, the characters did some things differently than I thought they should and didn't do some things I thought they should've and contradicted the personalities a little. This kept moving and added more challenges throughout. Overall a great read, with a good stopping point for the next book and something to keep you reading. Personally there were a couple of spots I would've skimmed over cuz I don't swing that way, but other than that, a great read and I'm interested to see what happens next.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Won this as a Goodreads Firstreads Giveaway. It sounded like a story I would really like. I did like it. I liked the main characters and the basic storyline. It was well written and the setting and characters were believeable. Unfortunately, it was strangely reminiscent of the X Men mutants. Anyway, it was a good read. It kept me turning the pages, but I am only mildly curious to see what will happen with Time Bandit, Charge, Susan and Jonathan. I guess if I saw future books of the series, I might pick them up and read them, depending on my time restraints, but this isn't one of those stories that I will wait expectantly for the next book to be published. But that is only me. I think that others who like this type of paranormal romance will really love and enjoy the series.

[GONZA · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not really liked this book because the relationship between Kathryn, Susan and Charge has something deeply disturbed and disturbing, although the premises, very similar to the X-Men, were all there for the story to be intriguing enough.

Non mi é piaciuto molto questo libro perché il rapporto tra Kathryn, Susan e Charge ha qualcosa di profondamente disturbato e disturbante, inoltre anche se le premesse, per quanto molto simili agli X-Men, erano tutte lí affinché la storia fosse intrigante quanto basta.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND MAGNIFICENT MILE PUBLISHING FOR THE PREVIEW!

[Ash P Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review rom LibraryThing Early Reviewers. It was an interesting read. Sci-Fi theme with mystery and intrigue with some steamy romance tossed in. Its got a good pace, the story doesn't drag along. The language is natural and the characters are strong and independent individuals. There is also a good lead up to the next sequel which I would probably read.

[Laura Greenwood]

DNF at 16%

This started out really promising for me, but then it just lost my interest a bit. The first 15% were basically Kathryn dating someone and I didn't feel the connection between them, particularly when he then did something questionable. It's a shame because the world around Kathryn did seem interesting.

[Jamie]

Won and received this in a Goodreads Firstreads Giveaway! Sounds exciting.

[Arianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
It was well written but I didn't like it. The interactions between characters were creepy and disturbing.
2 stars

[Zane · Rating 2 out of 5]

IMHO, the cover was the best thing about this book.