Stolen by Tana Stone

3 Stars

This novel was cleanly written and edited, with only a few typos that I caught in the ARC version of this manuscript. The world building was quite vivid and enjoyable. The characterization was okay, but I do have to admit to being disappointed in the heroine and the direction that this story took. In the beginning of this story, I was very excited because I thought that this heroine was going to finally be the one to get back to Earth and blow the top off the human trafficking deal the Drexians have with Earth's governments. I thought she was going to be the heroine that was going to hold the Drexians to account for kidnapping unwilling human women, and then not giving them any choice in who they marry. However, that is not at all what happened in this story. Instead, the heroine is incompetent at escaping the Drexians, the hero and heroine are kidnapped by the Collector, and she is made to feel guilty for trying to escape her Drexian match and she spends all her time apologizing for trying to escape. Other adventures than ensue. I cannot adequately explain how let down and cheated I felt about this, after the story's very promising beginning. At one point in the story, the Collector says to the Drexian hero, something along the lines of, "What I am doing to aliens is really not that different to what you Drexians do to human women." I agree whole-heartedly with the Collector in this instance. I enjoyed the setup of this series, and have enjoyed most of the novels in the series quite a bit, but at this point in the series' history, the Drexians still have not been made to acknowledge how wrong what they are doing to human women really is, and at this point, I am not sure that the author is ever going to include that kind of important, necessary plot evolution in this series at all. It is a real shame. The development of the romantic relationship between the hero and heroine was fairly natural and organic. The plot and pacing was exciting, with me quickly turning pages to find out what was going to happen next. This novel had low angst and high stakes, which tends to be one of my preferred narrative structures for a romance novel. This novel uses the Kidnapped Bride trope, the Mars Needs Women trope and the Heroine Unwilling to Commit trope. The world building was four stars. The plot and pacing was two stars, because I was very disappointed in the direction the plot went in after a very promising beginning. The characterization was three stars. The development of the romantic relationship was four stars. The combined score, therefore, was three stars, because of how disappointed I was with the direction this story took. This novel has a Happy Ever After ending instead of a cliffhanger, so that is a big plus to this novel. I recommend this story to readers who enjoy alien sci-fi romance novels. I am not buying 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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