TW/CW: Sexual assault and harrassment.

How to Tame a Beast in Seven Days is a slow burn fantasy romance that (despite the slowness of the romance) takes place over a week. There’s magic and assassinations, but for all its perceived elements of adventure, it was a rather subdued and odd read.

If a child is born when the twin moons align in the world of Aerthlan, they are known as Embraced, gifted with a variety of magical abilities. However, the ruling kingdoms of Aerthlan view the moon goddesses, Luna and Lessa, as a bad thing. The dudes in power hate matriarchal worship. Instead, they prefer to worship the sun god, who is depicted as male.

Embraced children are hidden or spirited away, lest their secrets be found out and they be put to death. Five of these children, all girls, are sent to a secretive covent on an island. Believing they’ve been abandoned, they’re raised by the island’s nuns and see one another as family.

While the subsequent books will be dedicated to each young woman’s romance, this one begins with the eldest, Luciana. To her surprise, her father has returned and needs her help. See, she was born with a twin sister. They kept her twin and sent Luciana away for protection. However, her twin has died and that poses a huge problem. Her sister was betrothed to Lord Leo, the Beast of Benwick, as ordered by their king. The king is scheming to get her father’s land and hopes that Leo, known for his own mystical powers of lightning, will inadvertently kill her. Then Leo could be put to death, which would mean the land’s ownership would ultimately end up in the king’s hands.

Luciana reluctantly agrees. Of course, she’s pissed that her dad just waltzes back into her life after thinking she’s been orphaned for nearly two decades. But she knows that if she refuses, he’ll most likely be murdered by the king for not following through with the betrothal. There’s one catch though: Luciana has to pose as her twin sister Tatiana to keep up the ruse.

Even further complicating matters: Luciana can see and converse with the dead, including her recently perished sister, whom she has never met before.

So to recap, we have hidden magic, evil kings, a sister in disguise, a “beastly” hero, pesky ghosts, and an arranged marriage.

When I mentioned earlier that this was a slow burn romance, I truly mean that in every sense of the description. Leo and Luciana don’t officially meet until about 150 pages into the book, which wore on my patience quite a bit. And while their courtship takes place over about a week, I felt that they reach a natural and believable state in their romance. They were both incredibly kind and understanding of one another, given the whole arranged marriage situation.

Leo is protective without posturing or imposing his will. Luciana, while a bit naive about the way of the world given her sheltered upbringing, is earnest and sweet. She also isn’t afraid to speak up, especially to Leo, if she thinks he is in the wrong.

Their romance was uncomplicated when it came to internal factors, so the bulk of the plot momentum relies heavily on external conflicts, among them many, many assassination attempts. There were at least three to my recollection, plus guards predictably falling asleep at their posts. The disorganization of the fictional staff drove me bonkers. At times, I was amazed that some of the secondary characters could tell the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground.

But I did enjoy the romance. Everything else was just fine…or fucking weird. Or confusing.

The book begins with a prologue explaining how the whole Embraced thing works. While it’s clear that there is some major sexism going on, it doesn’t outwardly state that only women who are Embraced are killed. I was bewildered by the fact that Leo’s magical abilities were pretty much an open secret. Even the king knows he has some sort of supernatural ability to harness the power of lightning. But Leo isn’t punished or killed. Instead, he serves as a general in the king’s army. Sure, people avoid Leo like the plague, but that’s about it. We also meet another man, Brody, who has Embraced abilities, but he isn’t being locked away either. The difference in treatment between Embraced men versus Embraced women was never really explained.

And then the WTF-ery, as summed up in my tweet

Just finished a fantasy romance that had r*pist ghosts and surprise Christianity and I'm at a bit of a loss.

— Amanda (@_ImAnAdult) November 27, 2018

Let’s start with the slightly less egregious of the two. Aerthlan’s theology is based on a somewhat monotheistic structure of worshipping the sun god. The twin moon goddesses are a no go and anyone seen worshiping them or making any affiliated religious symbols will be punished. Okay, got it.

However, there’s one particular scene where the ghost of Luciana’s sister falls in love with a scholarly prince ghost. Yeah, I know how weird that sentence was to read. Here is Tatiana telling her sister Luciana of a conversation she had with said scholarly prince ghost:

“And he told me the strangest thing. He thinks we are mistaken to worship either the sun or the moons because who made the sun? Or the moons? He believes there is one Creator who made everything in the Heavens. Plus every living thing on Aerthlan.”

Now we have a minor secondary character introducing some notion of monotheism. This theory is only mentioned once in that passage above. That’s it. No one else expresses this same view and there are no events that insinuate some shift in religious beliefs in the kingdom. It was completely and utterly out of left field. And while it may seem minor in the grand scheme of things, it still irked me. It’s possible that I’m treating this rather non-event too seriously and it was just some offhand comment. However, when religious and ideological tenets have been established in a fantasy world and they provide the main source of the character motivation, I expect to keep that continuity or show a more gradual shift from one ideology to another.

Lastly, the thing that bothered me most and CONTENT WARNING

 

…were the rapist ghosts.

The tone of the book is rather light and funny. Despite the mention of assassinations, nothing is gory and none of the violence is described in graphic detail.

In the book there is a child ghost named Christopher. He warns Luciana that the catacombs are filled with harmful ghosts and that he hates going down there. During one of the assassination attempts, Luciana is locked away in the catacombs.

When I finished that chapter, I had a major “what the hell was that” moment. Now, I don’t mind reading dark romances, if that’s what I know I’m getting into. But when the bulk of the book as been decidedly not that for nearly 300 pages, it’s incredibly jarring and unpleasant. It ruined the otherwise positive, yet tepid, reading experience I was having.

Oh, and you know how all events of the book are built upon the notion of shunning the Embraced, well…

While I appreciated the world building in the most general sense and the adorable romance between the hero and heroine, this felt very much like an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink romance with some WTF-ery thrown in for flavor. And though I’m excited to see who gets paired with Luciana’s magical sisters, this one tempered my energy to continue with the series.

Still, I wouldn’t say this book was bad. It was flummoxing. The parts I liked and that existed for nearly three-quarters of the book, were overshadowed by an increasing amount of irksome and tonally inappropriate details. There was such a deviation from the goofy, twee, and magical atmosphere of the book that I was unable to fully recover my initial enjoyment.