Elysa Hendricks, $0.99
Fantasy Romance, 2013
Like the title would suggest, Elysa Hendricks’s Cupid’s Apprentice is a romance with a bumbling “stupidity and incompetence are cute when you’re female” matchmaking angel forcing two people together. It’s quite an old school premise, as people these days are more interested in dragons humping wolves and bears and vampires and eagles and other things. Let’s not think of what the resulting babies will look like. This one is almost chaste in comparison to those endless furry convention orgies, so quaint and even antiquated for something that is published to… oh wait, this one was published back in 2013?
Medarda is a CA—that’s short for Cupid’s Apprentice, naturally—is in a pickle. She finally gets her first assignment ever since she gets her CA-ship, but she is given Laura Quinn, whom the other CAs call “Loser Laura”. These flying little mind-rape machines with bows and arrows are such nice people, I tell you. Loser Laura is called such because she is 28 and has flunked the last two efforts by CAs to force her into putting out to someone.
People rarely managed love matches without a Cupid’s help, but each human was allowed only three match attempts. The demand for love was too great to devote more resources to one person. Still the big boss hated to lose a client, which meant if Dar failed, Cupid’s wrath would fall on her. If she messed up her first real assignment would she ever get another? Ever earn her wings?
Wait, Laura is a “client”? How does that work, since I doubt Laura is paying money to be roofied by an arrow from some winged idiot.
Still, let’s focus on the more important issue at hand. Oh no, it’s the 21st century, and we know what happens to women that aren’t balled-and-chained when they hit 30! Apparently this is Laura’s last chance to be mind-raped by a CA into humping someone, or she will then have to exercise her own free will and find someone on her own forever, and that will be such a terrible thing indeed. Laura is supposed to be shacking up with “Boring” Brian Hoffman, but with Dar being Dar, she accidentally hits the wrong guy with one arrow and fails to hit Laura with the other. Not that it is a mistake, as the author has Laura gaping breathlessly at the sight of the PE teacher Flynn Sullivan, cataloging all his impressive assets in her thirst-addled brain, only to duck and act like a weirdo when he’s around. Our heroine is the kind that avoids talking to other people and generally sits in a corner acting like she’s hatching a plan to butcher everyone in the room while they sleep.
Gee, I wonder why no guy seems to want her around.
After her two failed attempts at relationships she should have known better. The first was just after she graduated from boarding school and spent the summer on the set of her mother’s latest film – Destiny’s Promise – a costume action drama. A handsome young actor with a small part in the picture wooed her. Desperate for attention, to be loved, Laura succumbed to the man’s charm. It wasn’t until after he’d bedded her that she’d learned he did it to get closer to her mother and it worked. Once Gloria’s attention turned to him, he abandoned Laura. The tabloids had a field day with the story, turning Laura into a jealous Lolita trying to steal her mother’s lover and ride her coat tails into show business.
The actor ended up with a larger part in the film, which catapulted him to fame. Last she heard he was dating another starlet and starring in an action film. Her mother gained even more popularity. And Laura was left to lick her wounds alone.
Her second relationship was with a graduate student in college. It wasn’t until they’d been together for six months that she realized he was only interested in gaining access to her father. She broke off the affair and swore off men.
I believe the author wants to show me that poor Laura is a victim, but frankly, our heroine comes off as even more of an idiot here.
The rest of the story sees Laura basically acting like an emotionally-needy barnacle, pushing Flynn away when he’s nice to her, and then reeling him back in only to insist that he continues to shower her with assurances that she’s much better than her mother. Again, I believe the author wants to demonstrate that the heroine has blossomed and found herself, or something like that, but what I get is the heroine demanding that the hero goes through great lengths to satisfy her ego and assuage her constant need for validation. Worse, the hero is doing all this because someone shot a roofie arrow right into him. The whole thing is exhausting to follow, and by the time this story limps to the finish line, I just want Laura and her mind-raped sex toy to just go away, get lost, vamoose.
Hmm, maybe that’s why there are so few romances triggered by pimp-angel shenanigans these days. When badly done, such as in this instance, they tend to come off as pretty mind rape-y and uncomfortable to read.
