Mini-Reviews: A Gentleman in the Street & Hot as Hades

Title: A Gentleman in the Street (The Campbell Siblings #1)
Author: Alisha Rai
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: November 24, 2014
Genre/Age Group: Adult, Erotic Romance
Source: Purchased
Add it: Goodreads
Rating:

MY THOUGHTS

I’ve been following Alisha Rai on Twitter for a while now because she’s funny, smart, and fabulous, so I figured it was time to finally read one of her books. I actually read Hot as Hades first, but for entirely selfish reasons (that cover is so ugly and I didn’t want it to be the featured image of this post) I’m starting with A Gentleman in the Street. A lot of my friends love this book, and with good reason. It’s smart, entertaining, sex-positive, has its cute moments, and gives some delightful commentary on the conceptualisation of women in fiction and in real life. My personal favourite is when Akira called out Jacob for killing off so many of his lady characters and needing to write better female characters in general. I also love reading about people who find love and/or their person in their mid-thirties  so that’s actually a note to myself that I need to read more adult stuff.

Another thing is that this book very much does not play. From the beginning, Akira and Jacob come on to each other very strongly. The funny thing is that both of them react to this with “oh, (s)he doesn’t mean that and probably does that with all their friends.” which made me question what kind of people they hang out with on the regular and also where I can meet them. I’d seen some people shelve this book as BDSM on Goodreads, but I was still surprised by the sheer amount of kink in it. It was a lot. And for some reason I was strangely apathetic throughout most of these sex scenes? I suspect that part of it is that most of this just wasn’t my kink and maybe also the fact that I was still emotionally raw from The Vanishing Throne. (It had only been 12 hours, after all.) I do love how none of this was shown to be a placeholder until Akira found a monogamous relationship or as a replacement for some kind of emotional need, for that matter. Rai has no time for your slut-, kink-, or sex-shaming and I fully approve.

The emotional bits, on the other hand, got to me much more. It generally kills me when a character (or person) is convinced they’re fundamentally unlovable and Akira was no exception. I completely support Jacob making it his mission in life to tell her how awesome and extraordinary she is, because she is. What worked less for me is how this often veered into heartfelt and slightly cheesy territory. There was so much sex that the rest of it felt a little low on story. Add to that the fact that most of the story focused on their issues, both individually and as a couple, and it often made the whole thing feel quite earnest and heavy, which rarely tends to work for me. It has really cute and funny moments towards the end, though, and I love how much they loved around each other, occasionally during sex, and especially that this was the more uncontrollable kind of laughter like wheezing, grinning, peals of laughter, and so on. I will always be a fan of that. I’m also eagerly anticipating the companion novels because COME ON Jacob’s brothers called their landscaping business MANSCAPERS. MANSCAPERS. How do you not immediately want that book?

MEMORABLE QUOTES

Her words cut off when he reentered the room pulling a white T-shirt over his head in that sexy way sexy men sexily pulled T-shirts on.

“Look. I didn’t come here to fight or ogle your ass—”
Jacob’s head snapped back. “Ogle my…”
“Oh, shut up,” she retorted, out of patience. “You know very well it’s a first-class ass. What do you do, do squats all day? Never mind, don’t answer.”

“You just want to see my library, don’t you?”
“How could you tell?”
“You looked mildly aroused when I used the word ‘library’. And I know it wasn’t for me, since I don’t elicit mild arousal.”

He shot her an incredulous glance. “When do you sleep?” She glanced deliberately at her watch. “Sometime between fucking and ruling the world.” The words were a test, and he passed. No flinch or expression of horror at her frank talk, but a snort of laughter that made her want to smile.

Title: Hot as Hades
Author: Alisha Rai
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Release Date: October 11, 2011
Genre/Age Group: Adult, Mythology, Erotic Romance, Retelling
Source: Purchased
Add it: Goodreads
Rating:

MY THOUGHTS

Now this was much more my jam and as a result, my thoughts will probably be a lot less coherent. I have a complicated relationship with the Hades/Persephone myth. It used to be one of my least favourite, so I tended to avoid any and all retellings. In the past two years, however, I’ve come across quite a few fics and headcanons that flesh out the Persephone archetype and show her as very fond of her husband and eager to rule the Underworld, which is the kind of interpretation I’m here for. (Not saying they didn’t exist before, just that I hadn’t come across them yet, which is a damn shame.) Rai seems to be with me on this. Aside from admitting in her afterword that she can get a little emo and mushy at times, which made me smile, she explained why she wanted to write a version without the abduction of it all, and I love her for it. You can perfectly read this without having to know the original myth or its various reworkings. As far as I’m concerned, between the dirty talk and the loads of agency Persephone has, Rai wrote an excellent smutty retelling that gave me a lot of feelings.

So feelings is pretty much what you’re going to get in the following paragraphs because there was A LOT. The one thing I’m not so sure about is how I felt about the blending of ancient mythology and modern technology/infrastructure. It didn’t completely work for me and was at times jarring, but it also didn’t bother me. Some of the dirty talk was also a bit oooookay then for me, but I was genuinely charmed by how Hades later admitted he blurted most of it out in the middle of a lust-filled haze. Their bickering also doesn’t really stop during sex scenes, which is great. This book proved once again how unexpectedly domestic scenarios are my kryptonite because even with (or maybe especially because of) the constant push and pull and mild aggravation with each other, Hades and Persephone were so very, very married and I have a lot of feelings about it. I wasn’t even halfway through the story and I was already imagining them as legit marrieds tangled in the same bed, Hades waking up because Persephone was drowsily weaving flower crowns through his hair. I don’t even know where that image came from, but it did not make my emotional state any more stable.

Of course, the thing that completely ruined that semblance of emotional stability was THEIR IMMENSE EFFECT ON EACH OTHER. I can’t even begin to pick a favourite moment. There’s Hades offering to train Persephone in developing and mastering her powers. There’s Persephone jumping in front of him when she thinks he’s being threatened, ready to punch down anyone coming his way. There’s Persephone willing to share her power with him and thinking nothing of it and Hades being genuinely stunned because he’s never seen a divine creature being that generous. There’s Persephone being extremely curious about the rest of the Underworld, which was incredibly endearing. There’s the fact that she reminds Hades what it’s like to be young and have fun, merely by being herself. Or that she brings colour and life back into his world and reminds him of the things he didn’t realise or tried to forget he missed, like bright colours and sunshine. There’s also the moment when she reminds him how sad he used to be when the spirits in the Elysian fields would retreat because they were scared off by his appearance, which is why he started cloaking himself. Not that he would ever admit it, which somehow makes it even better.

THERE’S THE FUCKING FACT THAT THEY BOTH MADE SURE SHE WOULDN’T EAT OR DRINK ANYTHING SO SHE’D BE ABLE TO STAY ON HER OWN TERMS WITHOUT EVER HAVING TO FEEL LIKE SHE WAS FORCED OR TRICKED INTO IT AND ALSO THAT THEY DON’T EVEN WANT TO MENTION FOOD AROUND EACH OTHER BECAUSE IT WILL REMIND HADES THAT PERSEPHONE CAN’T HAVE ANY BECAUSE OF HIM AND SHE DOESN’T WANT HIM TO FEEL GUILTY OR TO DEPRIVE HIMSELF ON HER ACCOUNT. And the best part of all this is that it’s written so subtly that it could be easily overlooked, but perks of being a mildly obsessed sloth reader, I guess. (Never mind that I frequently went back a few paragraphs to read it all over again.)

So. Feelings. There were had. Many of them very good and fuzzy. I had a small tragedy moment when it was revealed how time passed slower in the Underworld, because that meant that with Persephone’s classic arrangement of six months on Earth and six months ruling the Underworld, she’d always spend more time away from Hades than with him, and I was already in way too deep to be able to handle that. No spoilers, but this gets addressed, and in a way that once again shows how Alisha Rai writes smart, super enjoyable romances that doesn’t easily lose sight of the details.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

“I know. You don’t have to say it.” Persephone faced him again and shook her head. “Aphrodite has beauty and Artemis has war and Athena has wisdom, and what do I have?” She flung her arms wide, as if to encompass the room. “A green thumb. Useless, I tell you.”

“Studying will only give you a theoretical understanding. You need to be properly trained.” Go away now. But she was talking to him! And looking at him without fear! “I could help you.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
“You could…what?”
Oh, what the fuck. “You just need a little training, bit. I could, maybe, you know. Help. If you want.” Shut. Up. Because training meant that he’d be with her. Close to her. He wouldn’t be able to skulk about, hiding from her, and he wouldn’t be able to refuse to converse with her. Not when he was training her.

She raised her chin, and for the first time ever, he saw a split-second flash of the future instead of the past: a regal and intimidating Persephone ruling by his side.