In my favourite grovel books, Temptation by Charlotte Lamb and Lady Gallant by Suzanne Robinson, the heroes are proud alpha males who do humble themselves before the heroine. But they shouldn’t be enjoying it! That defeats the entire purpose. ⤅ Let’s be clear: I think they SHOULD be grovelling, after the way they treated her. These scenes were written purely as grovel porn, not with the intention of demonstrating a realistic relationship growth and redemption arc. Also, normal human beings simply cannot sustain that level of self-flagellation. There was kneeling, foot-kissing, wearing fetishy collars for her… some of them actually felt like male submissives, getting off on the act of debasing themselves rather than the idea of earning her forgiveness. Now, I love a besotted hero, but this was just to the point where they ceased to be actual humans with their own personalities.
I’ve never actually used this word before, but a Goodreads friend used it to describe the heroes, and you know what? It fits. ⤅ The heroes all turn into absolutely OTT, unbelievable, ridiculously pathetic… well, simps. Without individual issues, I want to say first that I can’t tell if I’ve changed or the writing style has, but it grated on me a lot. But she doesn’t want anything to do with them any more… or does she? Now they know she’s their mate, and they’re all apologetic and ready to make it up to her. This book picks up right where book one left off, with Lilah in hospital after her mates Orion, Jett, Atlas, Finn and Hunter so brutally rejected her during her heat.
I'm definitely going to be in the minority here, I'm sure everyone will love this. Specifically, I mean the hero/heroine should genuinely doubt the romance will survive. To be clear, I obviously don't mean it's totally free of angst - there are discussions of abuse etc which are 'angsty' - but when I personally use this term in a book review, I mean relationship angst.
Instead, I've had to shelve this as 'angst-free', which is not exactly what I was hoping for from my most-anticipated grovel read of the year. I expected to be able to shelve this book as 'vengeful heroine', 'OM drama', ideally even 'heroine leaves hero'.
As you can tell, I have a LOT of Goodreads shelves.
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