Elsa is a witch and not a happy one. Primary among the
things making her unhappy is trying to keep the charm shop she inherited from
her father running – a seemingly impossible task. Socialising is something she’s
largely written off, preferring cake.
But Marshall, her vampire tenant, may actually have the
key to solving her money troubles – but it means going away with him to secure
an important contract for his firm. Of course, alone together on a romantic
Christmas scrooge (and them both dedicated scrooges), other priorities arise.
This book begins in a very intriguing fashion. We’re
presented in a full world with a vast amount of supernatural creatures, a city
that is ruled and dominated by the supernatural, lots of monsters and magic and
even a focus on some creatures we very rarely see in the genre – Trolls and
Huldra. The world is described in a very intriguing fashion. My hopes were
raised, this world really interested me and I wanted to see more.
We have a snarky cat, which is always fun, and a
protagonist who is both fuller figured and quite happy to enjoy food,
especially cake. I always like a protagonist who appreciates good cake.
Elsa herself had a somewhat mundane but neat little task
– she has inherited her father’s shop and wants to make it a success; there’s
also a very artfully suggested underlying issue she also has to deal with but
is more teased than revealed as we burrow into the plot. I also really love
Elsa the Troll and her little problem with greed.
I even like how Marshall offers to help – recognising her
independence he offers a trade of services: her magical help in exchange for
his advertising expertise. He offers a service that will help her shop rather
than playing the White Knight and simply buying off her creditors. I was
intrigued – this was looking good.
The problem is that this very promising setting is used
to be a background for sex. Lots and lots and lots of kinky sex. Sex and
S&M scenes consume most of the book and there are major problems with this.
By far far FAR and
away the most severe of them is the problem of consent. The sexual relationship
between Elsa and Marshall begins with rape. There’s no ambiguity about this
(the book has a “dubcon” and “forced seduction” written in the front – this
isn’t dubious – it’s rape. Elsa is restrained, helpless, does not consent and
is raped. There is no question of that. The rape is certainly not treated as
rape, Elsa does not regard him as a rapist and there is generally a denial of
the whole rape element here. If anything, she is annoyed that he has seized
control and she is determined to enforce her own authority over the
relationship she is now determined to continue and even pursue. She pursues a
relationship with her rapist, the rape seems only to annoy her because of the
power dynamics of the relationship rather than the actual violation itself.
From there we just have lots of really broken consent –
basically she then decides her appropriate action will be to use magic and
woo-woo to control and sexually assault (and, again, rape) him. This back and
forth rape seems to be the establishment of their relationship and the
assumption that everything from then on is actually consensual. To which I just
repeatedly gaped at the book and occasionally just chanted “no no no no no”
over and over again.
Even if we removed the rapes (because there’s no real
need to point out what is problematic about a relationship beginning with rape
– it’s self-evidence or should be), from then on we still do not have a very
healthy depiction of an S&M relationship, especially with 2 strangers.
There’s no discussion of limits, consent, safety words, preferred activities or
really any attempt from either partner to establish what the other wants and
whether they agree to what is happening. There’s no consent, there’s no
communication and it’s generally far from an ideal BDSM relationship
Once we have that problem it seems pretty ridiculous to
complain about anything else because, really, rape renders everything else
somewhat moot. But I did find there was a problem with how the sex consumed the
story and the world building, even if there wasn’t any rape. Sex and sexual
tension seems to take the place of expositioning this world, of the whole
mission they’ve set out to do – even the conflict between Marshall and his ex
feels undeveloped and tacked on so we can have some more angst from Elsa and an
evil Ex trope. There’s so much focus on the sex that nothing else really
thrives
As far as sex goes in terms of a purely mechanical
description and word use and flow it’s actually really well written sex. Once
the characters actually move towards consent (though I can’t say they’re ever
excellent at establishing consent) it’s really well written in terms of
how-to-make-a-sex-scene-sexy. So there’s that.
It’s not that nothing else exists but sex – no we have Elsa‘s
body image issues which are huge and linked very much to who and what she is
and we have Marshall and his tragic childhood. Both of which I’d be more
interested in if it didn’t feel like more pulling from the main plot.
To be honest, I also kind of hate how both of these
issues are “resolved” at the end of the book as well. Elsa doesn’t learn to
appreciate her body – it’s generally accepted that yes, actually, she’s really
hideous – but here’s some woo-woo to cover it. Ok there is a moment when
Marshall makes it clear he values her however she looks, which is nicely done –
but that “but here’s permanent pretty woo-woo” kind of undermines it. And
Marshall ends up following the path his evil and abusive father laid out. Now
this could have been developed into the point that Marshall has a lot of other
responsibilities that also rest on his decision and saying no for the sake of a
grudge against his dad is immature- but it’s not really developed. Both of
these could have been complicated and interesting issues but because they don’t
get the exploration they deserve I feel they fall short of what they could be.
Inclusionwise we had several POC albeit not in a major
role – it can be argued that the only major roles were Elsa and Marshall and
it’s not inaccurate, but there were still a number of minor characters the vast
majority of whom were White. The POC we met did seem to be extremely powerful
and invested in Marshall and Elsa’s relationship for woo-woo reasons which, to
be honest, I couldn’t entirely follow. There are some other POC in minor roles,
but these were the most important and powerful if I could quite grasp exactly
what they were doing.
There may be one or two bisexual men. I say may because
they are both submissives in a relationship with woman and the contact between them is at her
instigation and at very least initially on one of their parts, is met with shock,
anger and revulsion (direct word choice). This leaves me thinking that at least
one of the two men isn’t bisexual so much as following his mistresses command –
and in the event that they are bisexual, their sexuality is there for a
straight woman’s pleasure and appreciation which is not a good trope.
This book leaves me frustrated, annoyed and more than a
little repelled. The frustration comes from the fact the world setting and the
characters of this book are unique and fascinating, they’re also really well
written and the whole thing is pretty amazingly original. Frustratingly we lose
so much of this focusing on what I’ll call a romance but is more sex than
romance. Not that it’s entirely awful - I’m someone who generally skims a lot
of sex scenes (lusty description + heat + moistness, thrust thrust thrust,
screaming; done. I’m not a fan of how most of them are written, it has to be
said) but was quite impressed by these for the most part
…once the rape is removed. Which is where the repelled
comes in. Rape is an utter romance failer. It’s like taking a car, praising it’s
wonderful engine and gears and… things (here endeth my knowledge of cars) but
you’ve ripped the wheels off. It doesn’t matter how wonderful everything else
is, the wheels are missing, it fails as a car. I’m not saying rape can’t exist
ins a story, but having your characters rape their way to a Happily Ever After
romance, is not so much taking the wheels off the car, but replacing the
windscreen with cheese slices, ripping out the engine to make room for a very
small mariachi band and changing the steering wheel for an angry, rabid echidna.
