I mentioned last week how I’d had a migraine a couple of weeks ago, so I avoided screens and dove into romance novellas as a recovery activity, and “Mate Abduction” was the next in said recovery plan, and it fit the bill to a tee. Eve Langlais (who is the mastermind behind Romancing the Capital) has a way with snarky, kickass heroines that I adore, and Clarabelle is no exception. And she’s definitely in a position where being a snarky, kickass heroine is going to come in handy, what with the whole abduction thing.
See, back when she was on a class trip with a bunch of teenage misfit girls, Clarabelle’s whole trip worth of people were abducted by aliens. It was a whole thing, and they more of less landed on their feet with a race of Amazon-like aliens (who have beaks) who have since raised the kids more-or-less like their own, loving them in their own harsh way, but definitely with a heavy dose of warrior-training. Clarabelle is getting a bit older, though, and she’s sort of in the mood for y’know, some sexy times, and beaky amazon-like aliens aren’t going to cut it, so she asks (demands might be a better word) for a ship and a shot at finding more humans. Like, a boyfriend. Not just for her, but for all the girls.
Going back to Earth isn’t an option—no one who has learned about alien races is allowed back at that particularly primitive planet—but other people must have been abducted, right? So Clarabelle begins her hunt for a very human male at the same time a really bronze, buff, and hunky (and okay, he has a tail) alien dude is out there looking for his own mate, and the local goddess has told him his mate isn’t on his own planet. They collide. He thinks it’s fate. She thinks a tail is too much. Hijinks and violence ensue. It’s all very Eve Langlais, and I chuckled and giggled my way through to the happy ending.
'Nathan Burgoine 