Claimed by the Alien Barbarian by Jude Gray

2 Stars

The writing and editing of this novel was fairly clean, with only occasional typos that I found in the ARC version of this manuscript. The world building was pretty minimal, with me the reader not getting a good mental picture of the landscapes of this alien world. The characterization was somewhat flat, with me not getting a good feel for the hero or the heroine as complex people. The development of the romantic relationship was somewhat marred for me because I found the culture and values of this tribe more than a little repulsive. Many people in the tribe behaved like scuzzy sexual predators toward the heroine and made it clear that her consent to sexual activity or even marriage was not something they valued. Also, their superstitions were gross, with the fact that they punished her for performing CPR on someone and they treated another of the human women like a pariah because she had red hair and so she was "bad luck". It is a very abusive, predatory culture. The fact that the heroine wanted to live in this gross culture with these gross people was, frankly, baffling to this reader. The plot and pacing was okay, though I really struggled to finish this novel. There was low angst and high stakes, which I typically enjoy in romance novels, but did not in this case. This novel used the Barbarian Hero trope common in sci-fi romances. The world building, plot, and pacing was three stars. The characterization and development of the romantic relationship was two stars. The tribe and it's values and culture rated one star. The combined score for this novel was therefore two stars for this reader. This novel ends on a Happy Ever After ending instead of a cliffhanger, so that is a plus to this novel. I do not recommend this novel to fans of alien sci-fi romances. There are many better ones out there. I do not plan to buy myself a keeper copy of this novel. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

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