Alexandra Isobel, $4.99, ISBN 979-8223375838
Romantic Suspense, 2023
Okay, the reader’s ability to enjoy Alexandra Isobel’s Mercury will hinge on their ability to appreciate the heroine’s toxic shame.
It’s toxic shame because the first chapter opens with some super serious PSA about toxic shame, and the preface has the author saying that she adapted some serious stuff about such shame from some non-fiction books.
So, what’s this big drama that the author just has to use to lecture me about this super serious shame? Did the heroine once try to have an abortion, the wire-hanger fellow died of a heart attack before he could start, and now the heroine is forever screaming into the void because she had killed that man?
It’s worse. Brace yourself, people, and sound the siren because trigger warnings are going off now. Ready?
The heroine Daria McToxicShame’s daughter needed a kidney badly, and her mother got a kidney for this daughter. While the daughter lived, Daria realized that her mother bought that thing off the black market so sound the shrieks of beata maria because now the heroine is toxic-shamed for all eternity.
Seriously? If she felt that bad, can’t she channel her energies into advocating against black markets and organ harvesting at grassroots level?
Here she thought the worst part of this weekend was going to be enduring her late mother’s blue blood bath of Toronto’s business elite and international executive royalty. She detested these social kiss-ass events even though she was very good at them. She’d been trained for these at her mother’s knee, then later by the directrice of her Swiss private academy. She was now a pro at camouflaging her true feelings when enemies were in the room, and in this room, they certainly were. They’d all circled her late mother’s KORECAN headquarters, salivating at the prospect of her committing a misstep as the new President and CEO so they could push her out and snatch control of the international conglomerate.
Mommy saved her daughter; you’d think that maybe Daria would appreciate how her mother’s position allowed that woman to save her daughter? I mean, I don’t see Daria doing anything better for that daughter…
Daria McChoirofEternalShame tries to hysterically explain her toxic shame to Mercury, the father of her black-market kidney wearing daughter, and he is such a charming hero.
His eyes remained steady on hers. “We communicated perfectly fine during my 24 hour stop over, and my dick was deep inside your pussy the whole time. All those hours of your multiple quivering orgasms told me everything I needed to know. What more did you need to be said?”
This is the first book in some series, and the above is on page three. The author is already waving her characters’ genitalia right at my face, and we haven’t even had dinner yet. Has good taste died out completely or do I need to ask Daria’s mom where to buy some from the black market?
Once she learned that her mother had paid her way to jump the line when so many other children—most of whom had been waiting longer than Rae—had died because of being passed over, had nearly destroyed Daria. Claws of shame had dug into her conscience and wouldn’t let go. Over time, that shame grew into a gnawing sensation of dark culpability that even her intensive therapy sessions couldn’t shake.
And now this. Their little girl’s organ not only had an unknown origin but was considered an illegal contraband all over the world.
Jesus, Satan, Buddha, Xenu, and all the gods at the table, is the author serious?
Now, black market, whatever, but if that saved my daughter, you bet I would be grateful and blessed to be given more time with her, even if it would also come with maybe a bit of guilt as to where the kidney came from. It’s my daughter, I’m her mother and I love her to pieces — how can I not be grateful?
The fact that this potentially complex emotional maelstrom is reduced to a simple “BAAAADD!!!” just because the author came across Vice articles talking about “toxic shame”… it’s enough to make me discover religion out of exasperation.
Anyway, the evil mother that dares to save her daughter’s life is dead. Something, something, Daria McIWishMyDaughterHasDiedInstead is in danger.
She grit her teeth. “No. I did not bring a portable security system with me. Security here is fine. The only person who would kick this door off the hinge is you.” She toed off her stilettos and wriggled her toes in the plush carpet. “You’d think you’d be happy Nigel was here, willing to help me wade through all of this shit in your absence.”
I take a deep breath, close the Calibre reader, and delete the file from my device.
I’m not going to lie; it’s a great feeling. I have detoxed myself and my device from what could have been easily one of the most putrid, stupidly plotted, terribly written things I would have the misfortune to encounter should I keep reading and it’s the most freeing experience ever.
So, how is everyone’s day?