The year of long book titles continues!
That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming is, like We Could Be Heroes, an ideal summer read. Granted, it’s a summer read that you’ll have to be careful not to read where someone young and impressionable could be reading over your shoulder, because it is s-p-i-c-y. But it’s silly, quick paced, not too long, and nothing you have to think too hard about.
That said, it definitely wasn’t for me. Cinnamon, our heroine, was fine I guess. I can’t really remember much about her. She loves her family and her friends and has no patience for bullies, so she has that going for her. Fallon, the demon, was just way too much of an alpha for me. Now, if you like the strong, confident, asshole-ish alpha and semi-consensual rough sex, this will probably really do it for you. Although personally, I did notice that the sex scenes and sexually suggestive scenes felt a little repetitive.
A common complaint about the current crop of “romantasy” novels is that they feel like neither the fantasy nor the romance are given the full attention they need. I’ll say that for this one, while the romantic tropes didn’t do it for me, it does function as a stand-alone romance novel. The relationship did get enough time on page for it to feel like a romance, rather than a fantasy with a romantic subplot. But that means that instead, the fantasy part feels underdone. The world building is more of a scaffolding than a finished setting, and the quest felt really simple given the stakes.
But the thing is, I went into this book not expecting much, and it didn’t disappoint me. I knew from the ridiculous title that I was going to get something that would probably be light on plot, light on world building, and high on smut. It lived up to that, and if it was queer or Fallon had been a secret teddy bear, I probably would have been all over it.
CWs and TWs: Lots of sexual content, a fair amount of fantasy violence and action. The author helpfully provides a content warning at the beginning that makes clear the more triggering specific sexual elements, so I recommend reading those if you’ve got the ick about certain kinks/scenarios/etc.
Source and Format: I read this as an ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries.
Book Bingo Prompts
SAL/SPL Adult Summer Reading: BIPOC Romance. Romantasy can be a pretty white space, and I’ve heard there’s some problematic issues with how some heroes are coded as a generic brown other. So it’s pretty nice to see a Black author writing a romantasy book with a curvy Black heroine right there on the cover.
SBTB Summer Romance: Steamy or Erotic Romance. I’d say this is one of the steamiest romances I’ve read so far this summer. If I remember correctly, there are at least three explicit sex scenes and a couple other dirty talk/heavy kissing foreplay type scenes in a relatively short book.
Book Bingo Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 17 out of 25 prompts complete. 2 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 15 out of 25 prompts complete. 1 bingo.
SAL/SPL Adult Summer Reading: 16 out of 23 prompts complete, 3 bingos.
SBTB Summer Romance: 4 out of 24 prompts complete, 0 bingos.