The whole plot arc of a Weapons Manufacturer (our heroine) coming to terms with the fact that, SHOCK, her weapons are used to kill people, and deciding it’s okay that the odd innocent person is hurt by it, seems painfully dated in post-Sandy Hook world. Characters go from hating/fearing each other to in love in a matter of hours. CENTURIES LONG trauma (including, yes, more sexual violence) is resolved within an hour (no, I’m not exaggerating). MAGIC! The characters are flat stereotypes. This is a common problem I have with supernatural romances.

Even setting aside the triggering content that there are no warnings for, the plot feels like a cheap, straight to VHS movie from the 80’s with plot contrivances all over the place to force the narrative along. They fight an old sorcerer who is of course unambiguously, 100% the Most Evil Dude Ever down to an utterly horrifying plot point where he tries to force someone to sexually assault his own daughter or else he’d sexually assault someone they care about (none of this ends up happening of course).īut if you find sexual violence triggering, I strongly suggest you run the other way. There’s a super secret group of Highly Trained Supernatural Soldiers in the background to set up the next few books, but they have about 5 seconds on the page and those seconds are spent building each of their Wounded Hero archetypes. The magic box turns out to have a 2,000 year old hottie who is the slave of anyone who opens the box until they die and can’t hurt them.

Plot: woman who makes weapons but hates violence is randomly given a magic box at a market because of Reasons. My review will almost certainly not be useful to you. That is important because I have yet to encounter a single paranormal romance novel I’ve liked, and I’ve read a few.

Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu