I like fantasy. I like romance. I like both of those things together. But I have to admit that the reason I picked up this book is not a good one. It was the title. I thought the title was so corny. And if I’m being honest, I still do. I really don’t like it. And yes, I realize plenty of books, romance or otherwise, tend to do this kind of play on titles (I work in a bookstore — the amount of puns in the cozy mystery titles is endless), but it just felt like too much. It was so ridiculous I picked it up just to see what the book was actually about. In that respect, I guess it worked, but geez, that’s not exactly the best way to get someone to read your book. As it stands, here we are, and I’ve read it twice — my original read in 2017, and again a few days ago. Why? Well, obviously it’s a series and the next book just came out so I have to refresh my brain on everything that’s happened. Like I said, I enjoy romance and fantasy — so I’m not going to let a hokey title stop me.
How to Tame a Beast in Seven Days (2017)
Written by: Kerrelyn Sparks
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Pages: 416 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: The Embraced #1
Publisher: St. Martin’s
The Premise:
As one of the Embraced — one born with magical powers — the beautiful, innocent Luciana escaped certain death after her father hid her away on the Isle of Moon. Now, nineteen years later, her father has returned with a frightening request. He will be executed unless Luciana returns to the mainland and marries a man feared throughout the land: a terrifying brute known as the Beast.
Luciana accepts her fate and agrees to wed the Beast — Lord Leofric — in order to save her father. Soon she learns that her betrothed is also one of the Embraced. With the ability to wield lightning, Leo’s immense power strikes fear into the hearts of men…and his mere touch can put an end to a woman’s life. But Luciana cannot deny the passion that burns between them. How can she resist the man who scorches her soul and makes her feel intoxicated with desire — even if surrendering to him could destroy them both?
No spoilers
Discussion: Setting aside the awkward play-on-a-movie-title that feels incredibly out of place for this fantasy romance, it’s a quick, entertaining read. I feel like I don’t bump into enough fantasy romance books. I mean the kind that are set in a completely different universe that feature kings and dragons and magic. I know they exist, but they tend to get overshadowed by historical and urban fantasy romances. Heck, walk down the romance section at the bookstore and pick one out at random and you have a good chance of it being one of those. And if not one of those, then contemporary romance. Look, I enjoy all those things, but most of the time I prefer to leave Earth entirely and visit far off lands that don’t exist…and if there’s sex on the pages while I’m there, high-five.
Leo has a good reason for keeping Luciana at a distance — touching her might kill her. But naturally the two of them are drawn to one another, so it makes for some good sexual tension. Luciana is a kindhearted person with a very unique Embraced gift that gives the story a few interesting twists, as well as providing Luciana with a extra advantages. She needs these advantages in order not to betray who she really is since she’s stuck pretending to be someone she’s not and failure means death. No pressure for someone who’s lived in an island convent all her life, right?
Of course Leo is the typical muscular hero (big muscled men aren’t my type, but I can roll with it) and a good guy. He does his best given his situation of never being able to touch people and constantly worried about being murdered by the king. Much of his time is spent trying to find assassins lurking around the home of Luciana and her father. Occasionally Luciana can be frustrating in that she doesn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation and puts herself in harm’s way. But then I suppose if she didn’t do so, the plot wouldn’t advance, so gotta roll with that, too.
Luciana’s sister started out as exceedingly annoying, but I’d forgotten that in the end she’d sorted herself out, so that was nice to see. Even though I’d read this book before, I’d forgotten pretty much everything so some of the reveals remained as actual reveals. I’m very curious about who the main antagonist of the series will turn out to be and what his true endgame is, but I’ll have to wait until all five books are out to do that.
Was sexytime on the pages good? Not bad, I’d say. Although Leo isn’t very thoughtful to the fact that Luciana hasn’t ever even seen a naked man before, much less had sex with someone. So while there’s some sweetness, there’s also a kind of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am thing going on. Leo. Dude. Chill out and explain things to the poor girl. In the end they make a cute couple and I’ll drink to that.
In Conclusion: If you’re in the market for a fantasy romance, it’s a good one to pick up. Four of the five books are now available, and you won’t even have to wait long for the (I assume) final book, which comes out in August. I recommend checking Kerrelyn Sparks’s website to look at the title list because the series was actually dropped after the third book before getting picked up by a different publisher. So the titles look different and the series name had to be changed a bit. It’s a fairly quick read, and if I were rating this on a 5 star scale, it would get 4 out of 5.
Oh, and one more thing — does it annoy anyone else when the guy on the cover in no way looks like the guy in the book? Because that bugs me something fierce. Right up there with the title.
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