Heroine falls in love with two different alien heroes (and I liked it)
Alice is not happy when her sister takes her to their late father's prepper hideout that is full of alien memorabilia. Alice doesn't believe in aliens (or arming herself to the teeth, like her sister Evie does), but unfortunately for her, apocalypse dad was right. Aliens are real, and unfortunately for Alice, her unsuspecting sister just opened a gateway to a faraway world - the dead fall!
Alice is drawn into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, is assaulted by killer worms and mauled, only to be rescued by a big, scary lion man who may or may not be planning on making her his next dinner. When she wakes up nearly naked and very afraid, she finds out that lion man is as smart as she is, but unfortunately he does not speak English.
The language barrier prevents meaningful conversations, but Alice gets to know Iyaren pretty well regardless. That is, until an fire-breathing enemy lizard from Iyaren's world turns up and decides to steal Alice from right under Iyaren's nose!
Tak, the hostile (to Iyaren) lizard man, is actually a nice addition to the dynamic, because he can understand what Alice says, despite being unable to make her understand him.
That being said, I was way less excited about the MFM romance than about the true ship in this book that had violent, interesting tension: Iyaren and Tak.
Since lion people and lizard people were at war in their home world, Tak and Iyaren are dangerously at odds despite speaking each other's languages, and it's EXCITING. I love those two and their dynamic. They have interesting dialogues, interactions and scenes. Way more interesting and tense than anything that involves Alice, lol.
Which brings me to the down-side: Alice just isn't a very convincing anchor for these two very different people. While I get that there is a physical attraction going on, the rest is just sketchy as to why on earth anyone could possibly find a boring person like her so fascinating. And not one, but two hot alien men! Yeah, it's ludicrous. Especially since Iyaren and Tak have better chemistry together than either of them have with her.
I guess the author made the smart choice when never allowing them to get touchy feely all three of them together, because no one would have wanted to notice Alice anymore.
So yeah. I liked it. But this would have been a greatest hits book if only Alice had tragically died in the beast attack so Iyaren and Tak could end up together.