Seriously, this book really frustrated me and it’s hard not to focus on those frustrations to the detriment of the novel. It is however, a perfect example of why I will never claim Ilona Andrews as a favorite author. I often find that their books have a subtle current of misogyny/gender issues which is easily overlooked because in general I like everything that surrounds that current and it’s a small current. That current ebbs and flows depending on the novel and oh boy did high tide hit with this book. There were multiple times my jaw just dropped or I wanted to throw my kindle across the room in frustration. This book contains one of the more disturbing scenes of sexualized violence that I’ve ever read. But it’s TOTES OK because the victim was a trashy bimbo who insulted our heroine (ok, in fairnes to the authors, Nevada strongly protested this woman’s treatment. But it was still gross and really, really disturbing)
Just a quick summary. Nevada Baylor is a PI sent to bring in a dangerous rich boy after he kills someone (so the cops don’t kill him first). It’s a suicide mission, her boss as much tells her this when he assigns it to her. Connor “Mad” Rogan (who is ALWAYS OMG ALWAYS called Mad Rogan like he had no other name, it drove me crazy) is seeking this same rich boy for reasons of his own. They intersect and you know… shit happens. And then I raged for the rest of the book.
Lets get the good out of the way first. I really like Nevada and her family. There were moments where I thought the Andrews were keeping her purposefully obtuse in order to further the plot and it annoyed me, but not so much that I thought she made a terrible investigator and I still really liked reading about her. She’s a capable woman with a couple of flaws and I just really liked reading her. The book was first person POV, which is generally not my favorite POV as it’s rarely well done, but I liked it here. I also liked the world building in the book. It’s an interesting alt-earth setting and while I have my doubts about how well the Andrews thought out the various changes that 100+ years of magic would actually make to society (especially magic that originated in Europe in the 1860s), we see so little of the broad world that it’s not quite as bothersome as it could be.
Basically, the book was typical Andrews fair and I enjoyed it. Except for Mad Rogan, everthing and I do mean EVERYTHING about him was terrible. I enjoyed the novel despite him, and most likely I’m not going to read any more of these books because of him. I hated him so much that he burned through any good will their previous novels have created and I’m honestly cautious about reading any books of theirs in the future. That’s how terrible he is. I understand that they likely have an over-arching plot of redemption planned out for him, my problem is that there are things that you don’t come back from and lines that you don’t cross before you head directly into villain territory. Connor “Mad” Rogan is so far in villain territory that I find it frustrating to see him as any kind of suitable romantic lead. In fact, the only thing separating the hero from the villain in this book is that Nevada couldn’t stop thinking about one of them naked and while she found the other attractive she didn’t want to sleep with him. I thought about doing a list of the two characters and their actions in the book just to show exactly how they parallel, but decided it might be too spoilery.
This was his introduction:
He cut right through the layers of civilization, politeness, and social snobbery to some preternatural female sense that said, “Dominant male. Danger. Power. Sex.”
That’s a ridiculous line and states a sentiment that I very strongly disagree with. But I thought it was going to lead to the more subtle gender issues that I find in the Andrews’ work. But no, it got worse. This is a quote from Rogan to Nevada just before the book ends.
“Fine,” he said. “You had no idea it could be this good. Nobody in your past was ever that good and you know that nobody in your future will ever be this good. You’ve had a taste and you want more. You want sex. Dirty, naked hot sex. It’s floating through your head as we speak. You think you can imagine what it would be like. Trust me, you have no idea. I haven’t even started. So run from it, think it over, pretend it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter. I’ll allow it for now. The more you fight, the more irresistible it will become, until one day I’ll motion with my hand and you’ll come running.”
Gross.
Super gross.
Seriously “I’ll allow it for now”? EXCUSE ME? ALLOW IT? Profanity deleted.
The thing is, that honestly isn’t even the worst thing for me. He doesn’t listen to Nevada when she tells him no. There are multiple times in the book where she tells him not to do the thing to her, but he does the thing anyway. THAT IS NOT ROMANTIC, and it sends up ALL THE RED FLAGS EVER. All of them. That’s the line. And again, to the authors credit, Nevada seems to recognize this. Maybe? God I hope so. At least her reasons for saying no to this guy at the end seem to indicate that. However these two getting together is so strongly telegraphed as the end result of the novels, and is even pushed by Nevada’s usually sensible grandmother, that I just can’t give the Andrews all that much credit.
Also, did I mention that the first time these two meet Rogan kidnaps and tortures her? Oh yea, that happened.
And then there’s the scene of sexual violence that really disgusted me.
Nevada and Rogan go to meet a woman in order to wring some information out of her. She’s presented as a fallen socialite, one who will never attain the social status she seeks and so she’s a little desperate. She quickly determines that Nevada fits into the ‘no competition’ slot (because obvs she’s a judge-y whore) and insults her. Rogan starts to magically make out with her and then uses his other power to use her clothing to strangle her, and he would have killed her if Nevada hadn’t stopped him. If that wasn’t gross enough, and believe me that’s plenty gross, not a page later we learn that when he does the magical make-out thing he can feel the emotions of the other person and connects with them. So he wasn’t just groping/sexing/kissing/whatever this woman, he was feeling exactly what she was feeling and then at the peak of arousal he attempts to kill her.
Once again, I don’t care if the overarching story line for this guy is a redemptive one. I don’t think you can come back from any of that and be a reasonable romantic lead.
I’m pissed, because I know this team can do better. I’ve seen them do better. But this book raised all of the red flags, ALL of them, and now I’m not sure I’m willing to check out new series by these authors any more- at least not without some serious, SERIOUS, heavy vetting by people I trust.
I don’t even know what to say because you are so, so, right, and I don’t do alphas as a rule, but… I loved this?
I think I might be swayed a bit by the function of time. In standard PNR, when the heroine succumbs to the rapey alpha-ness of the hero after 150 pages, it’s intolerable; here, Nevada has still refused him at the end and it will take a few more books (probably) to get them together. That gives Andrews time to rehab him and change his behavior, theoretically, instead of just rewarding him for his badness.
It’s splitting hairs. How our brains love to rationalize!
It’s funny, I don’t generally mind alpha stuff, so long as it doesn’t cross that invisible line where it just goes straight to toxic masculinity and grossness. And I LOVE that Nevada rejected him so completely. Honestly, if the book wasn’t coding this guy as a romantic hero I’d have enjoyed it 100% more.
I absolutely see your point here (my friend Erica just absolutely CANNOT with this book because she shares many of your feelings about Mad Rogan), but like alwaysanswerb, the book really worked for me. But then I also like all the Edge books way way more than you too. What he does is problematic on a lot of levels, but Nevada isn’t ok with it, and she does shut him down. I enjoyed the story despite Rogan’s douchiness and I also seem to be able to ignore a lot of problematic alphahole behaviour in books if I enjoy them enough overall (see Naked in Death by J.D. Robb – Roarke really doesn’t shine with glory there, he becomes a decent hero later). I trust that the Andrews will be able to redeem him by the end of the trilogy, and make him an actual hero, not a raging d*ck.
Honestly, if it weren’t so strongly telegraphed that Rogan and Nevada were going to end up together by the end of the series, or that everyone surrounding Nevada didn’t think Rogan was a perfect mate for her (and her grandmother was otherwise quite sensible UGH) I would be in a much better place with this book. Because Nevada and her reactions were great.
I think the scene you are referring to is the one with the woman at the mall. This woman, who participated in a scheme that killed people and will lead to the death of many and the razing of the city and hopefully to her the rise of herself and others to domination over pretty much everyone, keeps demanding that Rogan use his “tactile” abilities on her. When he finally does, which is in effect using HIM sexually, she keeps demanding that he continue. So the woman is using Rogan to “get off.” This makes HER the sexual aggressor if you ask me. The fact that he acquiesces and then tightens her dress around her neck is not about HIM getting a thrill. She’s the one who thought it was thrilling to have her clothes moved around without being touched. He wants information to stop the carnage as well as adding some punishment for her behavior.
While I get that a basic description makes it sound like what you’re saying, I personally am terribly sensitive to anything close to forced sexuality or sex and violence together. BUT your outrage here is misplaced. I think the woman at the mall, Harper, is it?, is the nasty lech.
Also, Rogan’s character isn’t drawn as a sexual perv where everybody thinks it’s just wonderful and natural. The woman vented quite vociferously, freely and dramatically in the narrative so it wasn’t like “oh yeah, this is a cool and sexy scene.” It wasn’t about sex at all in some respects. The scene provided an opportunity for Nevada to educate/remind Rogan of why he should do the right thing even when he can virtually do what he wants. She threatens him with harm for his behavior to get his attention. It is even a pivotal scene where she seems to get the understanding through to him. (And everyone including himself admits he may have been so traumatized during a war that he may not have a normal grasp on the grey areas of life). It is also obvious he got no enjoyment out of using his “tactile” abilities on said woman, while he did obviously enjoy using them on Nevada, after she said “yes” when he appropriately asked permission to explain by showing.
The only reason I’m bothering to respond to your so intense outrage is because it lands so high on the search engine, and I was tired of seeing it. You’re wrong on this one.
Whatever lady. My opinions are valid because they’re mine. You’re welcome to disagree. But I don’t have to think you’re right. This book is riddles with misogyny. Your attempted justifications didn’t actually address my issues at all.
But thanks for the early morning laugh. The thought of you googling this book and seeing my review so often that you just HAD to respond (pushing it higher up the search algorithm) just made my day.
What can I say, I was bored; fighting some insomnia. What exactly does, ‘you’re welcome to disagree but no’ mean? A negation that I’m welcome to disagree?
1. I took you as sincerely upset about the scene, for some reason thinking that if you bothered to rant so hard about it, you must think it was serious. I was only saying the scene served a purpose whether it was too much or ill-advised or whatever. Treating women like shit wasn’t theme of book. There are SO many, many much worse cases o misogynistic books out there, and since I had just read this book, I thought I’d explain how it fit in the story. And how it wasn’t just this dude attacking for pure jollies. Because it does happen to be a useful scene in that story. But I guess I didn’t express my point very well. I like this author duo, and the guys may be alpha whatever’s you call them but they usually have redeeming qualities, the women are great, fun dialogue and great supporting characters.
It’s just a head-scratcher that if you’re gunning for misogyny in fiction -a noble cause- you bothered to pick this one as your poster child and put so much into it. So MANY worse offenders out there. I just tossed a book after three pages because of its obvious theme that women are idiots and basically possessions, and worse, they like it that way. That is more my definition of misogyny.
Anyway, apparently your ranting online must be like a part-time hobby, so you’re welcome to the algorithm boost. One response should really help that out. ??
2. I spoke with respect to you, and I get “Whatever, lady” and “thanks for the early morning laugh.” Ironic that I’m more respectful to women than you can apparently dredge up. Wait, it’s men you’re pissed about. No, fake men. So, I get it, you’re just a pissed off, basically rude person in general.
You’re welcome to the laugh, you sound hard up, and I’d like to thank you too – I got myself a wry little chuckle myself this morning over your snarky, ‘I’m so urbane and cool’ response. And such a quick response too! So glad to give you hope that people read your stuff.
PS: If you’re trying to make it as an internet harpy reviewer, you need to work on grammar. Pretty atrocious. One click for your algorithm ain’t going to do it. Maybe check out Goodreads, now there’s some creative and hilarious dress-downs.
Awww sweetie, you came back
Look, I don’t normally post on stuff ever (even if I disagree). However, I am finding the way you responded to Ann as inappropriate and uncalled for. I felt Ann was very respectful in her comment outlining her own views regarding the content of your article. There is nothing wrong with differing opinions in the slightest. Your complete shut down and disregard of Ann seems petty (much like how Harper goes out of her way to insult Nevada to make herself look superior). Please note that I do not liken your actions to be of the same degree of Harper’s, it was meant only as an example.
I don’t expect you to agree with my comment, rather I expect that if you decide to reply I will be treated in much the same fashion. I suppose I only hope that my comment might give you pause, even if only for a second.
You have my best wishes melanir.
Yes. How dare I have and defend an opinion. Not for nothing, but she came on my review and told me I was reading the book wrong. Now, if you’d actually read the other comments you’d have noted that I’m capable of having friendly disagreements about the text. What I’m not ok with is someone coming along, out of nowhere, and telling me my opinion is wrong and I’m reading the book wrong.
Take your concern trolling elsewhere.
I must admit, I did not expect to be called a troll. I decided to google it for further clarification. I found that having deviated from the content of your article does in fact warrant calling me a troll. For this you have my apologies – trolling was not my intention.
Therefore I will say no more regarding my original comment.
Many thanks for your article, I had not considered these aspects of the book at all. Your article (and comments) have given me much to think about.