Celestial Heart Press, $4.99, ISBN 978-1005872922
Fantasy Romance, 2021
Kate Rudolph’s Hunting Season makes me release a weary sigh. Trying to find something in here that hasn’t already been done to death is like trying to find a unicorn in the middle of Antarctica.
First, we have the heroine Stasia. She is, of course, feisty and sassy in the way heroines are in this kind of stories, always have a snappy line for every occasion. Her wealthy father has remarried a woman young enough to be Stasia’s younger sister, and this wife is even younger than her father’s previous ex-wife.
Oh, and someone wants to kidnap her, so her father hires one of those blokes from those ex-military our-mighty-penises-combined-here-is-Captain-Planet-oooh agencies to protect her. Naturally, Stasia is indignant, because smart, feisty modern women like her would rather be kidnapped and sold to slavery than to have to deal with cocky men. Of course, he’s cocky in ways that makes her her melt inside, which only makes her figuratively pull his pigtails harder because that’s what modern, intelligent independent women do these days.
What’s that? Bodyguards are like so-Suzanne Brockmann, like eeuw, grandmother’s reading material, what is this, 2002, you say? Don’t worry, the author has you covered. Owen is not just an ex-military big-dongled action hero, he’s also a werewolf.
That’s right, now that you all are salivating because he’s now fashionable and trendy, be sure to buy the other books that feature Jackson, Hunter, Gibson, and Harold. Sorry, not Harold. No hunky furries are called Harold—the very idea, indeed.
Oh, and she’s his mate.
You know, if my father were a billionaire, and someone wants to kidnap me, I’d personally hire a team of bodyguards to be on me 24/7. I’d also take a vacation at some remote, secret hideaway in some lovely part of the world that only billionaires can afford to go, or be like Elon Musk and buy myself a trip to the moon or something. That makes sense, right? Have fun while eluding mean people—that’s what rich people do, after all.
No, not for Stasia. She hates her father’s money, you see, although I don’t see her living in a homeless shelter or do anything to walk the talk. Oh, and despite the danger she’s in, nothing will stop her from doing her volunteering thing, because we all know all these charity places are well known for their top notch security and lack of possibly dangerous riff-raffs waiting to take a bite out of her rear.
Now, I know why the author makes the heroine do this. It’s what every heroine does in a situation like this, as it’s some kind of law in a secret rule book that only romance authors have access to, and also because it’s a perfect way for the heroine to put herself in situations for her to be rescued by the hero. Oh don’t worry, as long as the heroine has a one-liner delivered in her best Buffy-speak tone regardless of the situation, she is still an independent and sassy woman and don’t anyone dare call her a damsel in distress. All you need to be an independent woman these days is Buffy-speak, after all.
Sure, Hunting Season is dumb, but it’s dumb just like every other generic bestselling stories of this kind, so perhaps I can’t fault the author for wanting to make bread by writing the most generic thing ever with as much broad appeal as possible. No one wants to go hungry, after all.
For me, though, reading this one is like eating for the hundredth time a meal that, if I ever liked it once upon a time, I couldn’t take a spoonful now without wanting to flee the table and out of the restaurant altogether—because I’ve read stories like this so many times that I just can’t take one more without wanting to scream. No, really, put this one in the middle of all similar stories out there, and I can’t for the life of me tell this one or the author’s style apart.
That’s a big damned shame, because the author’s narrative style is actually pretty easy to read, and the story actually flows at a nice pace. This may seem like basic things not worth pointing out, but given that I’ve read way too many self-published stories for the good of my sanity, I can safely say that a well-paced, well-written story can be quite the rarity in that terrifying corner of the romance scene. That’s why I am giving this one three oogies, despite me wincing and gritting my teeth at how everything about this story feels so, so, so overdone and unoriginal.
Therefore, this one actually feels unworthy of the author’s abilities, but hey, if this one made the author a lot of money, more power to her. I’d just be far more cautious about approaching any title of hers in the future.
