Joshua Mousey > Recent Status Updates

This book is so whimsical and wholesome, and I’ve barely started it.

YES! FUCK, YES! JUST LIKE THAT!

Oh, here we go...

Tazuk broke an orc oath and betrayed Eshka by agreeing to a race without a day’s rest… that slimey fiend…

I hope Liam, Eshka, Brow, and Braga survive…

🥹

Also, good to see this book acknowledge the sexiness of consent.

Ok, that was kind of hot.

What a cock tease...

Before: Strange how Liam thought Eshka talking to Tazuk led him to get jealous, and take up his own training to handle himself. Eshka and Tazuk could be having a totally different discussion for all we know. Maybe it's an unreliable narrator facet, and we'll know what they were really talking about later on.

After: Eshka snarled at Tazuk for taunting Liam, which was relieving. She's still for Liam.

Also, him getting jealous at her talking to Tazuk with interest, and getting Brow to train him instead, says enough about his true feelings to her, and his determination to not being a drag to her. In a way, it IS an ulterior motive on Eshka's part, but who knows why she's keeping him around other than some kind of protective instinct. We have our protag's motive now.

Eshka's an expert charioteer, and Liam is her driver in the tournament. She refused to race twice, so she was punished, I assume, by being paired with a human instead of Tazuk (another orc), tying into Liam's inferiority complex and Eshka's orc traditions.

Eshka's being motherly to him; no ulterior motives are implied yet. Liam thinks she wouldn't want him anyhow, but that's his low self esteem talking. He can't help but gravitate towards her presence with how he content he is in it. On another note, I like how Eshka's domineering and protective mannerisms inspire Liam to get strong like her, although her reluctance to get Liam into training feels stand offish.

Liam's reluctance to fully accept his attraction to Eshka, given how she bit him, proves there's some good sense in him, but it's weird how he questions that later while going with everything in his new life... not that he can do much as a well kept prisoner.

Liam being scared of such foreign customs is doing a number on his autonomy over his own choices, but being astonished at Eshka's form calmed him down. He even showed modesty and gratitude to her when she gets embarrassed at being naked publicly. She returns to favor by bandaging his bite wound. Eshka saw someone scared who needed care. Liam saw the same, despite his conflictions.

I assume it's orc tradition for females to be caretaking to their male mates, and biting them means they're married. Eshka doing so to Liam jadedly might go against her customs, which begs the question of how interspecies relations are in this world, but I digress.

Goddamnit, this is adorable… so far.

I’m gonna take my sweet time with this book. I want to savor every part of Eshka and Liam’s bond, but also bracing myself with the supposed violence it has to offer.

The prose is surprisingly good… mostly. Liam’s arousal from seeing Eshka for the first time snapping him out his detached, defeated state was something.

Dunno why Isar just left Liam with Eshka though, unless he thought she didn’t do the punishment and is making her wait with him to try again, but Liam screaming should have proved he did. We’ll see how it goes I guess.