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Title: Tiger Eye (Dirk & Steele #1)
Author: Marjorie M. Liu (marjoriemliu.com)
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Love Spell (Dorchester Publishing)
Basic Plotline: While on a trip to Beijing, Dela Reese purchases a box at a market, a box that contains, Hari, a shapeshifter who has been trapped inside the box for hundreds of years and must obey whoever owns it. Only, Dela isn't the only person interested in the box and now she must flee for her life.
The Positives: This is the book that convinced me that paranormal romance is still a genre worth reading and bothering with. After a lot of disappointing duds from big name authors who get rave reviews for reasons that absolutely mystify me, reading this reminded me why I love romance, why I love it with a paranormal edge, and how absolutely wonderful it can be when it's done right.
I actually loved both the heroine and hero in this book and actually rooted for them. For once, I didn't have to sort of handwave away all that disturbed or bothered me about the dynamics of those relationships. While I'm all for some hot and heavy lust, in a lot of paranormal romance seems to be based solely on lust, dominance, and possessiveness. It seems to be about a perfectly sculpted heroine who pretends she isn't perfectly sculpted because she has some pasted on flaw like being short or tall or having freckles falling into combative lust with a perfectly sculpted alpha male who wants to own and possess them through sex. I've met these alpha male types in real life, and their possessiveness doesn't stop at sex. They also want to possess things like their partner's money and free time and personal autonomy and I've just seen too many friends and acquaintances have to deal with abusive partners to find that sort of thing completely and unproblematically sexy.
So, when I picked this book up and realized that Liu was laying out a relationship based on trust and an actual rapport and mutual respect (respect! actual RESPECT! In a romantic relationship! Complete with boundaries that are not crossed and listening to the other person and treating them like an equal partner!), I was absolutely hooked. The way that Dela and Hari handle each other with care and caution, especially when it comes to Hari's past traumas and Dela wanting to do something dangerous and Hari wanting to be protective really had me rooting for them. Hari's protectiveness never crosses that line into "I own you" territory, and Dela makes it clear that while she may not be as physically superpowered as Hari, she definitely is not helpless and that she is going to do what she thinks is right, even if he objects.
Also? I'm amazed that finally, finally, FINALLY, there's a romance book where the rape (or rape attempt) survivor in question is NOT the heroine, it's the hero. This is one of the instances where a character's sexual assault is done well and with respect. It's Hari who is the rape victim, and Liu makes it clear, even if she doesn't outright use the word rape, that Hari being compelled via magic to have sex even when he really doesn't want to IS sexual assault, and that even the act of him being forced to perform oral sex on a woman is a form of rape. To show this, to be clear that it is assault, and to break through the ideas that all sex is penetrative and that rape only counts if it's penetrative or done to a woman is just amazing to me. That cements me as Liu's fangirl right there. While she may not use the specific terms, she makes sure to be very sympathetic to Hari, to how he feels about what he's been through, and how it does factor in to how his physical relationship with Dela progresses. And at no time is this used to somehow demean him or make him seem less masculine. Hari does very much feel lingering uneasiness and outright anxiety concerning sex because of his experiences, and he does want to take things slow and Dela actually respects this and doesn't act like a jerk about it. The fact that Liu was willing to respectfully and carefully show a seven foot, immortal shapeshifter as the sexual assault victim and do it well puts her above most paranormal romance authors by an order of magnitude.
Not only was it refreshing and delightful to have a heroine and hero with morals and ethics and functioning consciences, but the book is fun and there is genuine suspense and the action scenes are actually engaging rather than being boring.
The minor characters were fun, but for once, they didn't overshadow or outshine the main characters.
And plot! Actual plot that didn't bore the crap out of me or make itself so obvious as to make the finishing of the book a redundant act. Liu does a good job of unfolding not only the fact that Dela has someone coming after her, but that Hari is also in danger from a completely different foe, and she handles both these plots very well, managing to work through and resolve them in a way that was believable and enjoyable to read.
I should also note that the villains in this book were 80% less ridiculous than they usually are in paranormal romance. They had motives that I could truly believe and buy into and were actual sinister and threatening. And for once, somebody remember to BRING A FRELLING GUN when they want to kill somebody rather than doing it in the stupidest way possible. Yes, thank you. A villain smart enough to come packing. Thank you, Marjorie M. Liu, for remembering that projectile weapons exist and that people who want to kill other people would be remiss not to look into them and consider using them.
The Negatives - There are a couple of minor negative points to this book. Alas, no book is perfect, but this one makes a damn good crack at it.
The ending where Dela is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for Hari and does so seemed somewhat melodramatic to me, especially since I figured that Liu wasn't going to let it end like that. I have a Thing about heroines willing to die for their man, because it plays to some tropes that I've really not enjoyed in the past in other books and movies and what not, but at the same time, I did enjoy that it showed that Dela was just as willing to be protective of Hari as he was of her and that she was not just the helpless damsel needing protecting, but that she, too, had the power to save Hari as he had the power to save her.
I also felt like the dragon lady was a sort of Deus Ex Machina toward the end, even though she was (incognito) there from the beginning, but I appreciated that Liu at least made it clear in the Dragon Woman's own words that she had her own reasons for intervening in Hari and Dela's situation and not just because they're the One True Couple, so of course all other parties are deeply invested and interested in them.
And from the "it's just me" files, I kinda rolled my eyes at the ending in which our couple is together and Dela is pregnant and it ends with them smiling about the baby that's to come, which is an ending that sort of feels a little syrupy to me, but it may not raise even a single eyebrow for other readers out there. I count it as a personal negative, but I know that others might feel completely differently about it.
CoC Score: 9/10. There are several CoC's sprinkled throughout, and given the givens, I count Hari as a CoC. Liu does a good job, also, of getting the Beijing setting and characters (minor and major) right without making an entire city full of actual people seem like a backdrop to a white woman's romance, which often happens with U.S. published romances that are set in non-Western/U.S. locales.
Gender Score - 10/10. Dela is ACTUALLY a strong female character. While she may not have the precise ass kicking abilities that Hari or others do, she's strong enough to do the very, very difficult things like not taking the temptation to make Hari her actual slave and respecting his trauma and showing him that she's not going to be another slave mistress like he's had. She's also strong enough to make her own decisions, stand up to Hari, and then to work through their disagreements. Plus, her metal reading abilities are wonderful. I also loved that she was strong enough to both feel and deal with her guilt and grief that one of her projects was used to kill a child.
GLBT Score: 0/10. No overt GLBT folks, and before anyone makes the argument that Hari might count as bisexual because he was, under compulsion, made to sleep with men, just don't. So far as I can tell, Hari's actual, willful, consenting preference is for women. So, unfortunately, not even a hint of GLBT folks or issues in this, and there's no reason that at least one of the Dirk and Steele folks couldn't be queer. I don't know why there's this issue in cis-het romances of any subgenera of not even being able to have GLBT+ folks as at least meaningful supporting characters, and it bothers me. Of course, I'm also bothered that there aren't more GLBT+ centric paranormal romances/urban fantasies on the whole, but that's beyond the scope of Liu's book.
PWD Score: 0 or 5/10. One thing about this book is that you can read several characters as having disabilities due to their powers or due to trauma, even if it isn't outright stated that they're people with disabilities, and these characters in this novel are treated well. Arthur, for instance, can very much be said to have limitations and issues due to his powers and if you want to read that as a disability of sorts, I think it's handled with respect and minimal "oh, poor thing" type pity or derision. But I don't recall any of the characters being disabled in a way that doesn't stem from their powers or a fantastic source, hence the dual score. There could be something I'm missing in this reading, so please feel free to let me know in comments if there is!
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Date: 2010-10-17 05:59 pm (UTC)Somewhat amusingly, the first part of this book has been made into a hidden object/puzzle computer game. Supposedly there will be more games. I don't think I know of any other romance novel that's been made into a computer game.
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Date: 2010-10-18 08:58 am (UTC)