Not really sci-fi or romance, just description of an implausible sexual encounter.
This short (around 11000 words) book has been sitting in my to-read pile for a while after I picked it up on a promotion, and I finally got around to reading it today. It is positioned as a “science fiction romance” but I struggled to find much of either.
The setting is the near future, a world very like our own but which has somehow been “invaded” by mysterious aliens known as the Krinar (or ‘k’ for short). I put the word invaded in quotes, as there is no evidence in this story of any kind of actual invasion. Everything seems just as it would be without the aliens, except for some rumours on the internet and the presence of secretive nightclubs where beautiful people can go to have sex with the aliens. Leaving aside the big question mark about sexual compatibility with a species from a completely different planet and evolutionary history, which is never addressed at all in this book, I couldn’t find anything in this book which would be substantially different if “Krinar” were to be replaced by “wealthy people” The vagueness of the background left me with the feeling that is not really a science fiction story at all. It seems more an excuse to describe a sexual encounter with a mysterious and attractive stranger.
The characters are somewhat vague, too. Main character Amy wants to be a reporter but is stuck writing fluff pieces about pets. Her bisexual best friend Jay just wants to party. Together, they decide to investigate the rumours of alien sex clubs. Oh and there’s an alien, Vair, who is tall, beautiful and compelling. And that’s about it. Most of the book is a blow-by-blow encounter of the alien sex and descriptions of how wonderful it is. Other than the raw sexual passion there is no sense of an emotional journey for anyone in the story, and nothing is resolved, happily or otherwise, at the end. This lack of depth to the characters left me with the feeling that this is not really a romance story at all. It seems more like a fetishistic exploration of alien sex.
I was disappointed by this book, not by the quality of the writing but by the lack of actual story. There was no development to the characters, no exploration of changes to society after an alien invasion, no justification for why things have come to be the way they are, just an introduction and a couple of chapters of steamy alien nookie. If that’s what you want, fine, but it’s not what the book claims to be.