Mace Llewellyn has
changed a lot since his teenaged years - now out of the army and all grown up
so very well (and his lion’s mane now growing out to its full glorious length)
but he never forgot Desiree MacDermot.
When a murder in his
mother’s pride brings him home, he is again reunited with now police detective
Desiree. Their attraction burns - but there’s a murder to investigate and
Desiree knows nothing of the supernatural - or the politics of werelion prides
While Ronnie Lee,
werewolf, has had a wild life and she thinks she’s ready to make better choices
and settle down. But does Brendon Shaw, werelion ready to leave the pride life
count?
I love so many
aspects of the world building here. So many books have sued the concept of the
supernatural to justify all kinds of weird and regressive ideas (like alpha
werewolves being abusive arseholes for romance and everyone considering it
perfectly ok). Which is why I really like how the concept of werelions here is
so turned on its head. A society where the men basically do nothing but breed
with multiple women and get fed? That sounds so ideal for creating said abusive
nonsense. But instead we see female dominated societies, men traded back and
forth as breeding stock and discarded when they’re no longer useful (Brendan is
considered less useful to the Llewellyn family because he’s already bred
several times; they have children from him they don’t especially need him any
more). The men live lives of relatively idle luxury but it comes with being treated
as very hungry decorative ornaments who can fight really well. One of the
linking elements between Brandon, Mace and Mitch is that they’re all heavily
opting out of the Pride system because they object to this treatment and usage.
The Hyenas also look
savagly interesting. Again a strong sense of community and culture from another
supernatural group. If I have any complaint about the world building and these
excellent cultures it’s that we focus so much on the romance between the
characters that we don’t actually explore these cultures, this world building
(and anything else that may be out there) as much as I’d like - there’s
something really excellent here but we’re focused so much on the, admittedly
fun, relationship that we don’t really delve into it.
I also like the plot
lines which explore the worlds far more - the conflict between the shapeshifter
groups, the importance of various characters and how certain actions are
considered “cheating” even in relatively violent societies and how investigating
requires territory wrangling - the plot intertwines excellently with this and
is fun to watch. And I quite liked that there were two stories here - because
when we focused on Mace we kind of ignored Brandon despite him being more
centrally a victim. It was nice to step back and revisit the person who had
taken the most hits here
I wasn’t a fan of the
sex scenes. Not so much because they were bad but because there were So. Many.
Of. Them. And, again, it got in the way of far far far more interesting parts
of the book. I found it especially frustrating when Desiree learns about the
supernatural and doesn’t particularly examine it or ask many questions.
I have… a niggle.
It’s a niggle that comes having already read book
3 (because I managed to
completely get the first book in the series wrong). The thing is, Mitch (the
protagonist in Mane Attraction), Brandon and Mace all feel…. Pretty
similar? Lions who have, for various reasons, opted out of traditional werelion
society. Men who are pretty light hearted, jokey and hilarious.
And Sissy, Ronnie Lee
and Desiree are… also quite similar. All tough women who prefer casual
encounters to relationships and all are pretty severely adamant that they will
not will not will not have a long term relationship (either in general or with
this specific man). Until the above man continues pushing until she surrenders
to the inevitable. The basic frame of the plot, the basic frame of the
characters
And I feel kind of
wrong for thinking this because, unlike so many romances, I really like these
characters. I really like that they have fun, I like that they joke and are
silly and tease and torment others. I say again, they have fun. And a lot of
the tired tropes we see a lot in romance: the female characters are in no way
virginal or “gently used”: they’ve been sexually active and have absolutely no
shame in this. They also have close, excellent families that do strike sparks
but there’s still love. And they have female friends - in fact I’d say their
closest friends and most powerful relationships are with their friends not
their lovers. It feels so broken to complain that the awesome and original is
becoming a carbon copy… and yet… it is edging that way. And even the awesome
photocopied is an issue: I await the next book to see
The large number of
female friends also helps with the hefty amounts of female hostility. But it’s
pretty well done. Sure our female protagonists have one or more women they
loathe with the fiery passion of a thousand suns - but usually it’s not because
they’re terribad awful people (except maybe Mitch’s sister) - but because we
have some strong minded women who have taken a dislike. And their battles are
hilarious.
I do wonder if the
funness of the relationship makes me more forgiving of some issues. After all,
we do have a woman who said “no” and a man whose “persistence” won her over.
It’s a fun, laughing journey with little physical force and with lots of
enthusiastic sex but still there’s that contrast. I’m also slightly
discomforted by the idea of a man in his 30s fixating on a woman he had a crush
on when they were both 14.
Desiree is a woman of
part Puerto Rican descent whose ethnicity definitely informs her character with
both class and race heavily influencing her background and the difficulties she
faced and her family dynamics. It’s also emphasised that Desiree has brown
skin, there’s no ambiguity in how she is described which is often the case with
descriptions of paler skinned POC (the word “olive” is mentioned a lot but
Desiree’s Puerto Rican parents and sister are clearly mentioned)
She has close former
military friends who also include POC as well along with Desiree making a firm
note that New York is a diverse city
This book is… not
good with LGBTQ people. Firstly Desiree thinks it’s absolutely hilarious to
tease those friends by making jokes about them being gay. Which made me think
far less of her. Mitch decides it’s an absolutely hilarious joke to pose
several drunk male werewolves because how funny is simulated gay sex?
While Brendon has a
personal assistant who very very briefly appears, long enough just to confirm
he’s gay (yay token gay servant!) and for this exchange:
Brendon: “Go home and see you… uh…”
Smirking, Timothy asked, “my boyfriend, sir?”
“Yeah. Whatever. Can’t we just call him Frank?”
Brendon, you are a
man in his mid to late 30s, you run a chain of hotels. Be a professional, be an
adult, and don’t act like saying the word “boyfriend” would choke you. Also,
disrespecting your employee’s relationship like that is unprofessional and
hostile.
It’s a shame this is
a problem because the racial diversity was decent and the women are really
awesome and the whole book is so excellently funny. It’s a book I generally
read with a big smile on my face throughout reading it - there’s a lot of joy
there
