Mina Carter is usually hit or miss for me. She's an excellent author, & I love sci-fi, but this book was a huge miss for me. Perhaps if it had been longer, & there was a change in the alien's thinking. But the alien's treatment was much too similar to the horrible treatment of women & girls currently being kidnapped & forced into "marriages" or used as sex slaves around the world today, & I was left feeling nauseous.
They don't even free the women deemed too old to use for sex back into their own lives, instead they'll become maids & servants. I know it said "some objectionable content" but I didn't realize just how objectionable it would be too me.
I was left not even sure she was really as attracted to him as she thought since she's drugged. He says she wouldn't have had those reactions unless there was something to build on, but I've found tons of men mildly attractive, but not enough to want to give up my freedom & way of life for them. Its also not addressed that some of these women may already have husbands (or wives). What happens to them. I know, I know, I'm putting far too much thought into an erotic short, but these were all my hang ups & there may be someone out there who appreciates this review.
And she never stands up to the alien men, or tells them that the other women's freedom isn't hers to bargain away to begin with. Even if it seems like, at first glance, she's doing a noble thing I would want my own say & she essentially takes that away by even agreeing to bargain. I was also stuck with the images of mass rapes of these poor women in my head by the end as well. Either by the aliens or in the whore houses they intend to sell them to & it was something I couldn't move past. This is clearly not a genre for me. Ok, I'm done, not with Mina Carter, cuz she's got some serious good books, but with this series unless she makes some big changes.