MD Grimm, $3.99, ISBN 978-1005542696
Fantasy Romance, 2021
Hunter Landon is a member of an order devoted to shifter-busting. His adopted mother raised him on tales of gruesome monsters seeking to murder all humans, so when he falls for Glenn Lightfoot, a shifter, I’d reasonably expect MD Grimm’s Hunter and Hunted to be all about a conflicted star-crossed romance full of angst and what not.
Alas, I guess I am being unreasonable, because the author is already taking short cuts to make life so much easier for everyone from the first page. Hunter is already questioning the ways of the Knights, because you know, humans trying to keep the population of powerful, potentially murderous creatures is such a terrible concept. Why is the human heart so full of hate? Everyone, go dry hump a grizzly bear today!
What would he do if his month was up and he had no shifter? Would his family disown him? Despite the scary thought, it didn’t harden his resolve. He still doubted he could actually do it. Actually kill a shifter. To murder.
Meanwhile, Glenn is a freaking deer. No, really. You’d think the author will make things interesting by making Glenn a shifter that is actually dangerous, in order to challenge Hunter’s ridiculously naïve outlook, but come on, ain’t nobody got time for an actual story. Everyone is reading this just to amaze at the sight of a pee-pee being squashed into a tight rear end meat chute.
Indeed, there is no relationship conflict here between those two—it’s a smooth entry despite the lack of lube, in other words. The external conflict arises from the Knights understandably miffed that Hunter is eating venison in a manner completely unsanctioned by these people, but there is a strong network of other shifters and shifter-shagging folks to ensure that there is nothing here that can remotely cause either character to break into sweat.
Why write a story with such a premise if the author displayed allergies to conflict, character development, and emotional journeys?
This whole thing gives me “previously was a fanfiction” vibe, because this seems to be a story that depends on the reader’s recollection of actual conflicts that have taken place prior in original works that the story is based off on. For example, if this story had been about Bert and Ernie rolling in bed and arguing over the use of the best china for dinner, it expects the reader to have watched in the official, actual episode of Sesame Street of those two slapping one another into angry tears over a bitter argument over Ernie going vegan and insisting on never going down on Bert again because never his lips shall touch meat ever. The work of fanfiction, therefore, serves as a sequel of sorts. There is no need for character development or even solid world building because the reader already knows the background story and just wants to see Bert and Ernie resume boinking again.
Unfortunately, I have no idea whether Hunter or Hunted is a reworked fanfiction of Sesame Street, My Little Pony, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures, Professor Willow violating Pokémons, or whatever, so I have nothing to work on here. All I see is a story that wants to be about something, only to do everything within its power to avoid actually being that something. I’d say this one may please indiscriminate readers that just want to read about man shagging stuff, and any such stuff will do, because folks expecting anything more are likely to come away disappointed.
