I Married A Birdman by Regine Abel

 

The weakest installment of the three so far, unfortunately. I really liked the set-up. Humans are living as illegal colonists on a planet that's populated by birdmen and minotaurs (Zelconians and Yurus, to you). Because of their illegal status, they can't get any assistance from their Federation stand-in (the UPO-- I forget what it stands for), even though the Yurus are becoming hostile and planning attacks.

When Luana appeals to the Zelconians, who are psychic birdmen, they are sympathetic but basically say their hands are tied. Little does she know that they've made a separate appeal of their own to the UPO out of concern of the minotaurs and the answer is basically, marry one of the hoomans and then we can recognize them as being legal citizens and we can get involved without making it a big to-do. And conveniently, one of the birdmen is half-human/half-bird and he has a peen instead of a cloaca and lips instead of a beak, so not only can he bang, he can also, you know, not peck her while they bang. Also, they're soulmates because apparently he imprinted on her at first sight. Which feels like insta-love to me, but IDK. I don't make the rules.

I think I would have liked this a lot more if the heroine's personality expanded beyond "I'm horny for birds!" The heroine in LIZARDMAN was really into farming and agriculture, and the heroine in NAGA was a huntress who experienced a thrill in taking down challenging prey. This heroine is a doctor but she doesn't actually spend a whole lot of time doctoring. Most of it is spent lusting after her husband, Dakas. And to be fair, Dakas is pretty adorable. There's this hilarious scene where he tries to figure out how to use her shower and water gets everywhere and then she finds him in a water-soaked bathroom looking like a guilty puppy. But then there's also birding (read: birdmen vomiting food into each other's mouths) and there's this icky part of their bond where it apparently acts as a shock collar, causing pain if either of them ever considers cheating, which felt kind of gross to me.

Also, as I said, Luana's whole personality is I REALLY WANT TO FUCK THAT BIRDMAN.

So this one ended up falling short for me. I do wonder if maybe there's going to be a follow-up about the minotaur aliens. I pinged the author on Twitter and she gave me a very teasing response, which I'm choosing to infer means YES. There's an I MARRIED A MINOTAUR in my future. Which, if true, I'm very excited about. I still loved books one and two but I wasn't really impressed by this one at all.

2.5 out of 5 stars