Lissa is finding life as one of the few female vampires
difficult – she’s in demand and forced into a relationship she would certainly
not choose – definitely not the engagement. Her special powers also make her
special to the Council who are more than willing to use her as their tool and
instrument.
On top of that, the rules she’s under because of her unconventional
siring leave her stifled and controlled and subject to harsh and deeply
restrictive supervision at all times. Then there’s the werewolves, as a member
of their pack she has been called upon to help the Pack leader try and fix some
of the issues of the last book – leading to more duties and repeated danger as
she’s again drafted as bodyguard. Danger which only becomes more acute as an
ancient enemy starts to test both the vampires and werewolves
There’s a whole lot of people making demands of Lissa and
she has little freedom, space or agency in which to be herself.
The ongoing conflict of this book is Lissa feeling
trapped and constrained by the vampires around her. And rightly so. She is
continually kept in the dark, told to follow orders, never has anything
explained, is expected to drop everything and be sent across the world at a
moment’s notice. She lives under a death threat from the events of the last
book as well as continually compulsion forcing utter and complete obedience.
She rarely goes out without escorts, she rarely goes out at all. Even Merril’s
training is full of orders without explanations, unpleasant situations and only
reasons why after the fact.
On top of this she doesn’t trust any vampires not just
because of the death threat she’s under for existing but because of the way
Gavin dragged her in to that trial – compelling her so completely she couldn’t
even blink without permission and leaving her like this for three days.
Even more on top of all that we have the situation where
she is one of only 16 female vampires in the world (there are literally
hundreds, if not thousands, of male vampires) and there for she is in high
demand to marry one of them – and basically given the ultimatum to pick one for
the sake of vampire peace and vampires not all fighting each other for the
precious, rare womanfolk. Oh and she has to pick one based on one dance – a scenario
which would only be less plausible if the picking were based on her running out
at midnight and leaving a shoe behind. This leaves her with a choice that is
basically a) Gavin (who scares her for the whole compulsion thing), b) French
vampire who scares her and she thinks may want to kill her because of another
arseholery plan Wlodek & co have come up with to test Lissa’s abilities
without telling her (even after the fact because REASONS), c) strange Russian
vampire who scares her and is boring.
YAY choices!
This needs more salt in those wounds – so Gavin is then
ultra-super-awful possessive and has a habit of ranting and raging in several
languages if anything comes near his now fiancée. He is “protective” which
basically translates to screaming at her because she goes on dangerous mission which
she’s instructed to be part of. And in an extreme case where Lissa was sexually
assaulted he outright strips her in front of other people and scrubs her which
she protests – the whole thing is revolting.
For some of this book, Lissa is duly angry and enraged by
the way she is treated and realised this is forced to tolerate all of this on
pain of death. She’s angry and resentful and… it doesn’t last. She’ll be angry
over the way she’s treated or tried of Gavin’s ranting and raging – but still
maintain a father/daughter relationship with Merril with only the odd
passive/aggressive moments. She still loves Gavin (yes, really. I was bemused
by the very idea that she would love this man and for very little reason), she
remains very friendly with the werewolf who dry-humped her against her will. For
that Lissa continually has her clothes taken from her and Gavin continually
forces himself into her presence while she’s naked and this is never even
remotely treated as outrageous as it is! And it’s not just because she has to
put a good face on things and there’s no way out for her – this book is told
from her POV, we know her opinions, her thoughts and her emotions. I’m
constantly left asking myself why Lissa isn’t more mad, why she is allowing
these abusive arseholes around her the pretence of a loving relationship? Why
she is actually HAVING a loving, affectionate relationship with them? How does
the word “honey” not turn to acid in her mouth? Why is she still maintaining an
idea that these men are even close to decent people?
At the end of the book we have a very dramatic turn where
Lissa does finally react to the way she has been treated – but it takes another
event (where they keep her incredibly ignorant, she reacts to the circumstances
they don’t tell her about and she is then punished brutally for her reasonable
actions) to finally push her over the edge – and there’s a strong sense that
her dramatic snapping moment is due to that event more than the events through
the rest of the book. Still, we do, at the end, have a full outraged reaction
to how Lissa has been treated the whole book. Which then ends on a cliffhanger.
So that leaves me in something of a limbo on what to think here. Lissa is treated terribly all of this book, but at the end we do have a sense that Lissa is fully labelling what happened to her as appalling and intolerable and quite literally unendurable. Which, as we’ve said before, isn’t a bad thing – abuse and horrendous treatment happen and are definitely elements that can be included in a story – so long as it is labelled as such and not handwaved (then we have skeeviness). This leaves me in a position of withholding judgement on this whole storyline until the next book because it’s an ongoing issue. But I am wary. If we didn’t have that last moment this book would have been a 0.5 fang and had me ranting – now the ranting is delayed.
The story itself isn’t particularly high intensity but I
don’t think it’s a bad thing. She has some involvement in vampire politics, but
mainly around the edges and how she is being treated but there is a dramatic
moment near the beginning that is foreshadowing of a greater meta plot. She spends
some time with the werewolves who are recovering from the dramatic events of
the last book. There are a series of mini-adventures as they travel around the
country. Towards the end of the book that meta-plot raises its head and makes
it clear it’s going to be a major element for future books.
In some ways it’s a little disjointed because we have all
of these little mini action scenes, but few of them are connected. It’s almost
like a lot of teeny tiny short stories with lots of action then the next place.
But I think the book needs it – between the vampires and the werewolves and
various other sundries there are a huge number of characters in this book. By
keeping it focused on Lissa and her plight and keeping the story elements
relatively short and simple while still quite action-y we get a chance to
revisit all of these characters and re-learn them. There’s a lot of “so who is
this guy again?” moments but it’s ok, because we’re shown and told all over again
without it being too blatant. It
actually reads very well because of that and, even better, has left me feeling
a lot more confident reading more of the series since I have a better idea of
the issues, the meta and the people involved. It needed this reinforcement
Back to the skeeviness. There’s a lot of skeevy here and
a lot of the skeevy comes from a
skeevy world that just isn’t necessary. I’m not a fan of these tropes where
the protag is the only/one of the very few female vampire/werewolf/woo-woo in
the world. It seems convoluted, unnecessary and just a way to push the idea
that women are desirable objects to be claimed while at the same time ensuring
the super-special female protagonist doesn’t have many women around her (and
Lissa doesn’t, there’s only one woman who hangs around for any length of time
and she is a slutwhorejezebelhussy in Lissa’s eyes and derided near
constantly). There’s
also a strong element of exceptional woman here since not only is Lissa the
only non-derided woman who is constantly in the book, but she also seems to
have super woo-woo that is more special than any other vampire’s woo-woo
because WOO.
It’s used as a weird kind of justification for the whole
forced marriage idea (which I still don’t follow – since vampires can and do
have relationships with humans. Why do they want an immortal companion when
there seems to be little interest in her AS a companion?) Even the whole sexual
assault is part of some kind of ridiculous werewolf ritual (that requires
dryhumping after execution? Because?) and everyone treats it like a damn joke
afterwards.
In terms of POC we’re dealing with some very minor
background characters. We do have the introduction of 3 gay characters: a
servant and his briefly appearing lover, a vampire who acts as a chauffeur (and
practice biting but him being gay is mentioned to calm poor poor Gavin down).
They’re pretty replaceable background support staff.
In all, so much of this book makes me think I need to
read the next one. How bad everyone’s treatment of Lissa is and her reaction to
it needs the next book. How the introduction to the meta develops needs the
next book. How involved the minority servants become needs the next book. There’s
a lot of potential – but it’s good and bad. This could be a trainwreck, it
could be handled well – and I’m not sure which way we’re turning yet but so far
it’s not good.
