by 
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. Your purchases help fund my content and come at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!
If you’ve read my previous reviews on the blog, you probably know how I feel about monster romance novels.
I’ve recently been immersed in them, and you might not believe this, but before 2025, I had never touched a monster romance novel. Now, I can’t stop myself because there are so many books I could read and love. But it’s never too late, as far as I’m concerned.
In the past few weeks, I’ve written reviews for many other monster romance novels, and even put together a list of my favorite ones, so make sure you check that out.
This particular book is one of several monster romance novels I picked up last week. I read it, but wasn’t really feeling like dropping a review right away, so I’m only doing that now.
Want to Read or Listen to Books for Free?
- Try Kindle Unlimited FREE for 30 Days! Read tons of bestselling books from your favorite authors without spending a thing. So many great stories just waiting for you!
- Listen to Audiobooks FREE on Audible for 30 Days! Enjoy the best audiobooks by top authors all for free for a whole month. No strings attached!
- Watch Movies FREE on Amazon Prime Video for 30 Days! Also love movies? You can stream some of the most popular and all-time favorite films totally free for 30 days.
Grab Your Copy on Amazon
Anyway, the storyline is fairly simple. If you’ve read a lot of monster romance books, you know there’s usually a common plotline: monsters don’t have enough females in their tribe, which encourages them to either kidnap or woo women.
In this particular book, the orcs are not keen on mating with women, but they have a traveling prophet who tells them they’re cursed by fairies, and that all the females in their clan will die.
The only way to break the curse is to bring and supervise the successful mating of a hundred women from different towns. You can really tell how unexcited they are about the idea of mating with human women because someone literally kills the prophet before he even finishes his speech.
But they decide to venture into the human world to find women and try to save their people. The male lead, Soren, falls for the female lead, Elisa, who has been branded as an outcast because her mother was accused of witchcraft and killed at the stake.
She was about to be killed by her own people when she ran away into the forest. The orc finds her and decides she is his mate. There’s no fated-mates trope here, though; it’s more about a genuine connection, which I liked, but I’ll explain why it didn’t quite work for me.
Orcs are usually portrayed as being incredibly dangerous, hard to reason with, and just downright unreasonable, at least compared to human men. And even though we’ve seen a more approachable side to orcs develop in other novels, I was a little irritated that this one was so amiable.
The orcs laugh and joke among themselves, and they have a strong sense of brotherhood, which would make sense if they were human, but I didn’t expect to see orcs being so friendly. It just didn’t feel right for me in this particular book.
Grab Your Copy on Amazon
Not only is he friendly with his comrades, but he’s also a commander and the first son of the current leader. He’s very moral, hygienic, organized, understanding, and forgiving – essentially, he’s very human-like.
Personally, I always want my orcs to be bad, dangerous, and a little unpredictable. Seeing him be so nice and understanding made the book less enjoyable for me, even though there are plenty of positive moments, which felt more at home in a contemporary romance novel.
I get why the author chose to portray the orcs this way – it’s part of the book’s message about challenging perceptions of others. In the world of the book, orcs, humans, and other fantastical creatures coexist.
Each group has been fed stories about the others to create misunderstandings. This book is all about Elisa learning that the orcs might not be so bad after all.
When I read other monster romance novels, I complained because they didn’t delve much into the female lead’s politics, and I wanted more of that. This book delivers on that front – she’s outspoken and doesn’t shy away from sharing her opinions.
She hates the idea of orcs storming villages and killing people, but over time, she learns she’s in love with the orc and is willing to go along with his plans. I liked this, but the constant push and pull made the book drag on, and I felt like we could’ve explored more of what happens after she’s taken back to his town.
The whole book takes place on the road back to the town, which limits the story’s scope. The repetitive attempts to run away and being punished became frustrating.
As for the orcs’ patriarchy, it’s as prominent as you’d expect. In their personal relationships, the male lead asserts his dominance over the female lead in interesting ways, which you’ll have to read to find out. She’s reluctant and embarrassed by her reactions to him for a long time, but eventually, she gets on board with the situation.
All in all, I enjoyed the book. It was fun, but I do wish the orc lead had been a little more brutal, and I would have loved to see more of their domestic life.
I was really curious to see how she’d fit in with the orc tribe since the book’s main theme is her realizing that she might finally have found a home where everyone accepts her.
Unfortunately, we don’t get that exploration, which is a little disappointing. I hope there’s an installment that goes deeper into their life together because I wouldn’t mind revisiting this world. If you have any monster romance novels you love, let me know – I’m always looking for recommendations!
Grab Your Copy on Amazon
