RE Butler, $2.99
Fantasy Romance, 2018
The Beta’s Heart may boast to have a werewolf dude that isn’t an alpha, but sadly, this just means that Ren Corbin is the alpha’s second-in-command, instead of being the top dog. Everything else about the werewolf hero trope remains the same. He’s still that guy, which will either reassure or disappoint the reader, depending on their expectations.
This one is the eighth entry in RE Butler’s Wilde Creek Eight series, and by this point, things are nearly incestuous as everyone is now sleeping with everyone who’s family member is already sleeping with someone else in their circle of acquaintances. Our heroine Kismet Thorburn whose twin brother is someone’s brother-in-law, and oh yes, she has copper-tipped white wings and the ability to control the weather.
When this story opens, Ren immediately realizes that she is his “truemate”. Well, that is easy. Who needs hook-up apps when your horny horn sense can do all the swiping for the swiving? Meanwhile, she saw him before and now she is hiding in the woods, so that she can spy on him in a sweet and innocent kind of creepy way. Her father is very important, so everyone in her circle wants to tinker her bell. Kismet wants only Ren, so now she hopes that he will choose her as his mate. A wolf and a fae—good lord, I can only wonder how ugly their children will be.
Early in this story, there is a huge info dump on everyone’s relationship with everyone else, how important they are, the powers they have, and more. Well, my advice is to completely disregard the details, because sure enough, they don’t have any really significant impact on the rest of the story. There won’t be a threat that will force Kismet to use her Storm-like powers to save the world. There won’t be any military campaign involving Ren’s father, much less any credible diplomatic dispute between the hairy ones and the frosted-winged ones. It was if the author deliberately wanted to lead readers with the first few pages into thinking that this story would be so much more than what it turns out to be, hmm.
What this story turns out to be is another standard “the plot already dictates that we have to love one another, so we’ll just spend the rest of the story gamboling about and having sex”. It’s nothing that I haven’t read before, right down to the pregnancy plot device to make sure that our main characters can’t come to their senses should their forced-upon truemate contrivance malfunctions. This one is all about the interactions without any actual falling-in-love process going on. Truth be told, the whole thing is like enjoying a post-coital cuddle without experiencing the coital act itself.
Oh, and surprise, the filler last-minute drama involves a jealous hag that wants to put Kismet down. As I’ve always said, in fantasy romances, female characters have little value because, apparently, romance readers only want descriptions of the male characters’ sexual prowess. Female characters are either reduced to the heroine’s BFF, future mates of sequel baits, some male sequel bait’s soon-to-be-dead mate to start off that character’s angst in a later story, or evil hos that exist just to be put down. The author isn’t rocking that boat here.
Still, the whole thing is readable in an inoffensive, unremarkable manner. While it never becomes good, it never crosses the line into awful territory either. Both lead characters are bland and forgettable, yes, but they aren’t particularly grating or dumb.
Hence, here’s a most unenthusiastic three-oogie rating for The Beta’s Heart.
