Susan Stephens, $2.99, ISBN 978-1-910604-51-9
Romantic Suspense, 2021 (Reissue)

Susan Stephens’s Alexei was previously published as Christmas Tsar, which was first published in 2016 by the author herself. I guess that’s the beauty of publishing one’s own works: when in doubt or when the sales figures don’t give the expected result, ramp up the beefcake factor on the cover.

This is the first entry in the Blood and Thunder series, and it revolves around Alexei Riga, a Russian that leads a band of super… I mean, he’s the owner of a polo team. So much for blood and thunder, huh? However, don’t leave yet. There is no shortage of increasingly ludicrous suspenseful drama here, as we shall soon see.

Oh don’t worry, be rest assured that he’s a billionaire. Whether they are polo team owners or a janitor, every romance hero is one.

So, our heroine Amber Smith is an investigative journalist for this newspaper called Hard News. I wonder what year this story takes place in, because no American news outlets, print or digital or whatever, does this thing anymore, instead preferring to become mouthpieces for their owners’ favorite political party. Her boss believes that there is something fishy going on with Alexei—please don’t mention Russiagate, please don’t mention Russiagate—so Amber is sent undercover to be a staff member on Alexei’s luxurious yacht.

Don’t play with Amber, as her CV tells Alexei that she was in Special Ops before she turned became the trainee journalist of Hard News… wait, isn’t she supposed to be undercover?

Also, what a coincidence, Alexei was also a commanding officer in Special Ops too. I’m not sure how he manages to make billions since leaving his past career, but maybe that’s why Hard News is suspicious. Oh, what am I doing? I’m putting way more thought into this story than the author.

Fuck, she’d made him hard! Clutching his straining cock as the door closed behind the latest potential recruit, he grimaced and shut his eyes to blank her out.

Hmm, if it hurt that bad, shouldn’t he get it checked? Maybe it’s a hidden medical condition causing the pain. We don’t want that thing to spew blood on the wedding night and terrify the wits out of the poor heroine now, do we?

Alas, before he can show her his hard news, Amber falls into a trap laid by slavers, and poor Amber needs to rescued. I mean, sure, she’s in Special Ops, but you know, it’s only romantic if the guy had a reason to save her. Yes, in spite of being a billionaire polo team owner and playboy, Alexei is actually Russian Bruce Wayne, and the whole yacht is actually a secret vigilante slavers-you’re-getting-it-bitches attack squad.

I’m sure you can tell that I love this baby. It’s so ridiculous, full of things that don’t make sense and sometimes even logistically implausible, unless one accepts that this story is at least 500% full of it. For example, the idea that one can still make and maintain one’s billions while risking their lives doing Russian Batman crap, shagging women, and somehow staying in the limelight all at once… is that even possible?

At the same time, though, things can get so absurd and over the top that I can’t help but to laugh. Alexei is fun as a so-bad-it’s-pretty-awesome story, and Alexei and Amber are like the more mundane, less overbearing siblings of the typical couple in a Lora Leigh romantic suspense, and those characters can be so much fun too in how over the top they and everything else can be.

So yes, I’m giving this one three oogies, but to folks that want to get this one, I would recommend approaching it with a more ironic mindset. Don’t expect logic or coherence or anything like that, and who knows, one may end up having a good time as a result!