Alright, it’s time for the first book review of 2022, and I’m already starting with a caveat: I read this last year. But it was before NaNoWriMo, and that meant all my blog posts were queued up already, so here we are!
Also, as another caveat—this is a romance novel. As in: a lot of sex. And it’s not the usual romance novel, either.
Your usual reminder: buy off of bookshop.org instead of the dread amazon, because it’s better for bookstores and authors, and because amazon is terrible.
Also: the bookshop.org link is an affiliate link, meaning that I may get a percentage of the book price. It’s a way to support this blog and your local b. berry writer if you so choose.
Friends With The Monsters by Albany Walker is a reverse harem monsterfucking novel.
There, I said it. And I said it with pride over on my twitter, because it was exactly what I was looking for. Also, it has a really cool cover!
Harem is a genre in romance novels (and anime, in a usually annoying fashion) where there’s one protagonist and more than two romantic options. It also usually implies that there’s more than one relationship; whether this is full polyamory, partner sharing, an open relationship, or whatever, it’s up to the specific story. And, as per history, harem usually implies one man with a horde of women.
So a reverse harem is one woman with a horde of men. You can see the appeal.
(We’ll get to the monsterfucking down below, but really, it’s there in the term.)
Damiana is the star of this story, set in a spooky world of the supernatural, including witches, fae, cryptids, urban legends, shapeshifters, and the Grim Reaper. Who, by the way, is probably my favorite character. She is a rather likeable heroine: she has powers, nebulously understood by her, but she knows how to use enough of them to accomplish her means—she’s a sin eater. So she eats sins of other people as her main diet and source of energy.
She also lives in a genuinely haunted house and has made friends with all of the creepy creatures within, even when she doesn’t know what they are outside of her term of “baddies”.
And I can’t get enough of that worldbuilding.
We learn later that there are fairies—one of Dami’s best friends is a brownie assassin, who is great if rather one-dimensional—and witches and a lot she’s unaware of in the spooky realm. But Dami has been content to live her life, sucking sins out of nasty club-goers, never bedding the same partner twice, and cherishing her life of seclusion.
Until a handsome man appears, bleeding to death, in her bedroom.
Romance novels don’t always try to have plots, and that’s not a fault of theirs. You know what you’re getting into. Some do have plots, and they’re great, or at least good enough to keep the action going. My issue here is that Friends With The Monsters tried to have a plot, and failed.
We learn that witches are killing off magical creatures to steal their powers. It works, definitely, as a premise! There is an inherent need for team-ups, the worry Dami has for her baddie friends, and the worry she has for her new love interests. But the plot is paced so awkwardly, and anticlimactically, and it goes beyond sequel hook into “wait, that wasn’t wrapped up at all!” territory.
But hey, it’s a romance novel, and while I love plots and wished that this had paid out on its superb worldbuilding, it happens. So long as the romance part of the deal holds up. (Psst I’m talking about the sex.)
So, reverse harem means that there is one woman and, in this case, three gentlemen love interests. (Dami references female past lovers, too, which is cool.) She makes it very clear pretty much from the start of the set-up between them that she is not choosing between them, and I applaud the author and Dami for that. As it’s told from Dami’s POV, we only get her thoughts, and as such, while the men clearly expect this to be a love triangle (square?), she doesn’t, so the narrative doesn’t suffer unduly.
Granted, initially she doesn’t want any of them, because she’s not here for love. Obviously, due to the premise and genre, she does catch some feelings, and some of them are genuinely touching. Others feel a little forced. Alas!
So, about that other part of how I described this novel—monsterfucking.
This novel was advertised as such, and Dami’s three mates (this was foretold by fate, and that’s the term the novel uses) are a berserker, a lion shapeshifter, and the Grim Reaper. Definite props for variety and not going for the usual supernatural suspects when it comes to romance!
Except… None of it turns into monsterfucking.
It doesn’t always mean that literally, as a trope—it doesn’t always mean that the tentacle monster is too terrible to behold and has unknowable physical forms. Werewolves are a common example of this trope, too, probably the best known. (Vampires could, depending on the worldbuilding, as could demons, angels, and other spooky things.) But it can mean monster on human action, too.
This story didn’t do any of that. All three gentlemen were classically handsome and remained that way. We only saw the shapeshifter shift once, and honestly, his character fell by the wayside, too. The Grim Reaper entered the story as cloaked in shadows and without a physical form, but decided to become a pretty boy to blend in with humans. And the berserker, curiously enough, is vaguely described as “hulking out” when angry, but otherwise doesn’t seem to do much aside from have some strength.
(Lore note: I have a berserker character in my urban fantasy novel, and as such, have delved deeply into their lore. They were originally thought of as bear shapeshifters—the term literally means “bear shirt”—and were intense warriors. The temper is a given, but the fact that the character wasn’t the shapeshifter was an odd author choice.)
Combative romances are really hit or miss for me, and her romance with the berserker was pretty miss. I didn’t care for him at all. I liked the Grim Reaper best—named Grim, of course—but that’s also because Dami had “known” him since childhood, due to her connection to spookiness. I’m not someone who always needs an emotional connection for porn to happen, but in this case, it was necessary.
There were only four sex scenes (and one masturbation scene), which I found odd, considering the novel length. And frankly, the first two were the hottest; the spiciness appeared to drop in quality as the story wore on and the flimsy plot vied for screen time. The narrative thirst was pretty good, but considering we were left waiting for a couple of partner consummations, the weaker characterizations did not do the story any favors.
There is a sequel, maybe a series, and I could see that happening. As I said before—and cannot overstate—the worldbuilding was really fucking cool. If it was just smut in that world, or just plot in that world, or just balanced them better, I’d sign right up. But as it stands, considering the poor wrap-up of the plot and my meh take on half the cast, I’m going to pass on reading any further.
But hey, at least I got to tweet about my 2 days of reading a reverse harem monsterfucker romance novel. Take that, algorithm.
