DelSin Publishing, $2.99
Paranormal Romance, 2013
I have no idea how it happened, but I was under the assumption that The Alien Billionaire’s Pet had tentacles when I purchased it. I know, I know, if I keep this up, my digital library will resemble the grotesque offspring of Fur Affinity and DeviantArt. But I always say, a reason to play in the indie field is to experience the weirdest things ever and live to tell the tale. Oh, just stop snickering.
So, this one has no tentacles. What it is is, well, it’s the author’s take on the billionaire-Doms-an-ingénue formula that was the hottest selling ever for a while, only the guy in question is an alien. Our heroine Mina is doing her thing one day when she is nearly raped and killed. Our hero Kristophe Maximillian Cross is passing by when he detects the villain’s thoughts and kills that villain. He then takes the opportunity to tell Mina that she can now become his possession forever or she can face the cops, who’d suspect her of killing the villain. He even has a smirk (really) for Mina’s dazed confusion. At any rate, Mina agrees to become his pet, so it’s love in motion from start to finish.
Kristophe is certainly an alien, as he treats Mina like an object of curiosity as well as the receptacle of his lust. Nothing about her should be kept from him – he even wants to see her bathe and all. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t allow her any personal boundaries and he basically forced her into this arrangement, he’s not too bad, really. He doesn’t whine about his sad childhood or uses his angst to justify his cruddy treatment of the opposite sex. Here, Kristophe is a hybrid-alien (don’t ask, I’m just quoting the author), but he treats the heroine with far more care than a typical fifty shades of emo type of fellow.
My issue with this story is Mina. The story is entirely from her point of view, and this is problematic because I get zero insight as to why she can become so devoted to Kristophe. The psychological element to this story is too superficial to work. I’d love to know how Mina can accept Kristophe’s rules and revels in it. Instead, I have Mina questioning her remarkably easy acceptance of Kristophe even as she revels in his treatment of her. So, basically, by the last page Mina is as befuddled as I am as to why she’s so happy to be the alien billionaire’s pet. Isn’t it great that the heroine and I are on the same wavelength?
The sex scenes aren’t too bad, although the author’s use of words like “shaft” and “lips” tend to be unintentionally hilarious, often at the wrong moments. Unfortunately, they also highlight how lacking this story is without any compelling psychological elements to balance the main characters’ sexy time. The whole “the heroine hasn’t done this before, but oh, she likes it, so she likes it” treatment of Mina’s character feels like a grade school version of sexual awakening. Everything feels so banal here.
My greatest pleasure from reading The Alien Billionaire’s Pet comes from the fact that it isn’t as painful as I half expected it to be. There are some missing words here and there, but nothing too obvious to pull me out from my reading. The author has a sense of humor that works at times, and there is a playful vibe of self-awareness running throughout the whole story that makes even the more absurd moments palatable.
It’s just too bad that it’s missing that one thing that would have made this a sweet form of serendipity: a mature and compelling approach to the heroine’s sexual awakening and emotional development.
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