First things first: I haven't read Torkel's Chosen prior to reading this book due to some negative reviews from the first installment. However, considering this second book didn't have all the rage I've seen for book one, I decided to give this a try. My mistake.
I love alien books and I love shifter romances, so I was excited to read a combination of both, since the author could bring the best of both worlds in one story. Sadly, this book seemed like it was written by two different authors, one was briefed to write about aliens and the other, shifters. The story felt disconnected regarding this two points.
My top dislikes:
- The extreme similarity between aliens and humans. Look, I understand that some people need the alien H to look as humanoid as possible, but some differences should be made. If not by his blood being blue and his ears being pointed, he would be a human. The H was a mix between two alien races and was human-like, just like all the other fighters, even though a lot of them were also mixed alien races (and not the same mix as the H). Even his shifter self was Earth-like (a "big cat"). So apparently not only most aliens look like humans, animals look Earthly as well.
- The ambiance, manners and technology were also similar to this age Earth. The h and her human friends had no difficulty adapting to their new lifestyle since everything was so close to what we find on Earth. Really? REALLY? That's just lazy writing, IMO. When I read a sci-fi romance, I want to be able to truly imagine something different from what I’m used to seeing on Earth, and this book failed.
- I had to read so many information regarding irrelevant side characters, it was not even funny. The author barely described the planet they were living, for example, but wasted an entire chapter to some drug operation that had nothing to do to the main story.
- The H was a manwhore. I’m not a fan of knowing the main characters past relationships nor do I like to know their thoughts about other characters being hot (it felt like the H was lusting after the h’s best friend and that was gross). I hate men who flirt with everybody and doesn’t stop others from flirting with them. So the hero being flirty with the heroine’s friend? Not cool. I don’t care if he could smell that the side character was not actually lusting him, the heroine was not aware of it and had to watch them flirt with each other.
- The sex would be lovely to a male reader but little to no excitement to a female one. The way the sexual encounters were described in this book were similar to some I read on books with male authors (Dan Brown would be proud, but I'm not).
- I was not able to understand how she was not a virgin considering the male-female ratio on Earth plus her not being raped when kidnapped. I get to read about the hero's past lovers but not a line about her previous sex life.
- The H marked her (and by doing so claimed her as his mate) but only invited her to move in with him a couple of chapters latter. It was almost as if marrying someone but only inviting them to live with you a few months later. It's odd.
- The whole relationship building happened off page and we were just informed they were developing feelings for each other (info dump). It was impossible to see how they feel in love since they were always with other people around or seeing each other in brief encounters. I had to believe they talked on the phone but was never introduced to a scene were this happens, for example.
- The book lacked actual plot. The story was all over the place, from a restaurant accidental explosion to a bad guy who only appears at the very end, it left that bitter taste of a book written by someone who had no focus.
-There were spelling and punctuation mistakes, but not to the point where it gets distracting.
Overall, this was a bad mix between a shifter romance and a mars-needs-woman trope.
Had to skim the last ~30% to be able to finish this book. I’m sad to say I’m not going to continue to read this series.