VoidwalkerMy Review
I haven't ever really read a book like this, so I'm going to throw some comparison titles out there and hope I'm not too far off base. I think, if you're a fan of Stacey McEwan's Glacian trilogy or Ice Planet Barbarians, you might enjoy S.A. MacLean's Voidwalker. Both of those other titles have wintry settings with love interests of a different species. Voidwalker is definitely darker, though, in that the male main character, an antler-and-tail-having monster with big sharp teeth, has to eat humans to survive. It's a bit of a twisted sci-fi-esque romantasy.
I'm not usually squeamish, but it was weird to me how the female main character could be intimate with a creature that eats people and has eaten people alive. In the wise words of Edward Cullen, it's like a lion falling in love with a lamb and vice versa. And unlike Twilight, it was sort of uncomfortable to think about. I thought the storyline would have a male monster character that didn't follow his fellow creature's diet, not that he just did it more politely. It was strange, especially with one specific scene at the end that, unfortunately, automatically dropped my rating and enjoyment. It was just a bit icky when that scene happened. Too icky for me. I was able to have fun with the story up until that point.
Because of the daeyeri creatures' diet, I'm not sure if Voidwalker should be recommended for seasoned monster romance vets or if it's something wannabe monster-romance readers would enjoy. The spicy times were pretty tame based on some other monstrous books I've read, but the mind games I had while thinking about the male main character eating people just made me believe the story isn't for the newbies.
With this being a romantasy story, there are, of course, two main characters in Voidwalker. Fi is a smuggler who can walk in the Void, which is basically like portal jumping between different lands, and Antal is the daeyeri monster with powers that are a tad confusing. I liked both of them, but Antal is useless for like 80% of the story. How did he ever survive by himself? And although I did like the characters overall, I don't think I ever connected with them enough to fall in love. They were simply entertaining.
Now, as for the descriptions of the world and magic, they were a bit dry at first. At times, they took me out of the story. However, when there were dialogue and action scenes, I was invested. It's when the action slowed down that I found my mind wondering to other things. The plot itself was fun. I was able to read it fairly quickly, despite Voidwalker being a chunk of a book. Having to partner up with a monster to take down an even more monstrous monster is typically a good time. The two main characters were kind of disasters together too, which made the story entertaining. Honestly, if it wasn't for the diet, this would have been a good read.
All in all, I think this one was too weird for me. I'm not a big monster-romance girlie, so it makes sense. I don't dislike the genre, I'm just particular about the monster romance I choose to consume (pun intended). I thought this one would be a bit more palatable, though, since it's traditionally published. But, the eating people thing didn't work for me. It's a very beautiful cover, though, and maybe I'll want to pick up book two once I've had more time to digest the story.
