Yet more books (this time not all are romance, but all are good)
Lindsay Buroker, The Emperor's Edge - someone on my flist recced this and I cannot remember who, but thank you! This was a delight from beginning to end. A steampunk fantasy adventure, this is a mix of LM Bujold's Miles series, Full Metal Panic, and Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn. Our protagonist is Amaranthe, a by-the-book enforcer (policewoman),
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I'm ashamed to admit I kind of liked Claiming the Courtesan in a horrified guilty pleasure kind of way. And I need to reread Untouched, one of my fave romances as well.
EDIT: I just saw that Emperor's Edge was a series. 5 books published so far. Excellent!
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Untouched = one of my top 10 romances.
Re: Emperor's Edge. Apparently there is a bit of romance later but it's fun even without it.
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I confess I enjoyed CtC too even as my conscience was screaming at me and I was being horrified at myself. I have to say, that was the only example of that trope where I could buy heroine forgiving the hero (due to her personality and other circumstances) and where hero was truly shown as deeply disturbed enough to do this due to not being able to process emotions healthily, while I could still buy his eventual redemption even if not in a 'I want to date him' way. So basically, angels of my nature thought the book was appalling but my bad side liked it a lot.
--> I couldn't have said it better! I need something else than the "Guilty Pleasure" tag for such a book. It's one level above a guilty pleasure. Maybe "Disturbingly fascinating"?
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Disturbing fascinating certainly fits. I give props to that book for not portraying what he does as either somehow sexily alpha or no big deal a la 1980s romances. He is clearly a totally messed up person due to being brought up by two abusive psychopaths and has no idea how do deal with his feelings on any level past toddler. Though being adult and powerful, he can do a lot more damage than a toddler before he learns. Honestly, if this was available in 1700s, I'd say he needed serious and extensive therapy for years before he gets anywhere near well-adjusted or even properly functional, but obviously not available back then. I still wanted someone to beat him up within an inch of his life, but ehh---I confess to rooting for the couple at the end regardless (the fact that he had such an awful time throughout the book helped).
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The style reminds me a bit of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and it can only be a good thing :o)
He is clearly a totally messed up person due to being brought up by two abusive psychopaths and has no idea how do deal with his feelings on any level past toddler.
--> I love such characters. They're very interesting to read about (of course, I'd run away as far as I could if I ever met one in RL). Authors too often wimp out and only give us normal heroes with some baggage. It's rare to read about a hero who's 100% messed up and who doesn't magically gets a personality transplant by the end of the book.
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Yes, I like it when messed up people in books get better but do not magically heal entirely (Smite in Untouched is a great example - even by the end, he is happier but he still can't bear to have his face touched etc).
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If you happen to know another author or series like this one I'd love to know, I am really excited to read more from this genre.
~Maqluba
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I actually have The Iron Duke on my want-to-read list so I'll def start it soon:) thanks for the recc's I'll def look into the other two as well... ooo now I'm too excited to sleep, guess I'll be starting some of that reading tonight:)
~Maqluba
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I can't really think of books that are both steampunk *and* fantasy (that's why I was so excited when I read Mousie's post!). I can only thing of Steampunk (like The Iron Duke) *or* Fantasy.
I might rec The Native Star and The Hidden Goddess by M.K. Hobson. They're steampunk but with some magic thrown in and with great worldbuilding. They take place in America and follow the same main characters. Here's the Goodreads page: The Native Star
In straight Fantasy I'd rec Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith. But it's technically a Young Adult Fantasy so you might find the characters a bit too young for you. They're all old enough to get married and take part in political intrigues though.
Crown Duel. If you're interested, be sure to get the version I linked to. The story was first published in 2 parts: Crown Duel and Court Duel and it's better ( ... )
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I'd recommend reading a variety of reviews on Goodreads (both the 5 stars kind and the 1 or 2 stars kind) before deciding whether to read one of them or not/
Out of all of these, my favorite would be Crown Duel but it's a sentimental choice rather than a logical one. I was so obsessed with this book at one point that I'd printed all the extra scenes the author had written in the hero's point of view (CD is written from the heroine's pov) to insert them in my paperback copy of the book. It was first published about 15 years ago. It's been quite a while!
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I use Goodreads as a guide too so I know I've seen the Study series on a buncha fantasy lists they have on there and the others look just as good so I'll def look into them. I've grown a little tired of historical and contemporary romances lately so I'm trying to include in some fantasy/steampunk/paranorm but I have a hard time enjoying paranorm because the heroes are usually Super-Alpha vamps or werewolves or something of the sort and I can only handle so much testosterone (or whatever the non-human version of testosterone they have lol). So I've had to 'settle' with fantasy/steampunk where the characters are usually human and I don't have the urge to smack the hero in the head with a heavy shovel :)
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Re-Study, I confess that while I loved the first book to pieces, I wasn't so thrilled about the other two. I only keep a paperback copy of Poison Study at home. I have Magic and Fire on my Kindle but I haven't reread them so far.
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