Big Sky: A Dark Contemporary Standalone by Kitty Thomas

 

Kitty Thomas is one of my autobuy authors but I don't always love her work. BIG SKY is a tough book to rate because there were some things about it that I liked but it also has some really out-there kinks that I wasn't into and wasn't warned about, and the hero is kind of a jerk (and not in the usual morally black, "you are mine or else" way).

The book actually has a similar format to a Hallmark movie, hilariously enough. Veronica is a big city girl with a six figure job but she's being evicted from her home due to a mountain of credit card debt. At a diner, she sees this hot 6'5" cowboy who ends up offering a suspicious job at his "ranch" and Ronnie obviously says how about no, creep.

Mr. Cowboy thinks no is like Santa Claus: it doesn't exist. Not for him.

Spoiler: Ronnie ends up kidnapped and taken to the ranch anyway.

***WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW***

I have no problem with captivity romances when done well, which this one does, and Thomas is excellent at plunging into the psychology of the characters. But this book goes so much further than I was prepared for in a dark romance. It's basically like tradwife meets hucow. The heroine has to wear sundresses and be submissive to the hero in all ways, BUT he also brands her on her ass like his cows and then injects her with hormones so she lactates, and he and all his ranchers feed on her every morning and also there's a milking machine that, you know, doubles as a sex device.

Even that wasn't *too* much of a shock since I actually read a couple other hucow books for a dare, but the hero doesn't really seem all that into Ronnie. He's still in love with his ex-wife. He uses his ex-wife to guilt Ronnie into performing these humiliating acts "because his wife would have done it." Even by the end of the book, it doesn't really feel like a true HEA. That was really disappointing to me because in books like THE GAME MAKER and THE MONSTER KEEPS ME SAFE, which I loved, I bought those happy endings, even though they were fucked up. Because in those books, the hero did things for his woman that were exceptions he wouldn't grant anyone else. I so did not get that vibe here.

This was an interesting story and not a badly written one but it kind of left me feeling disappointed and sad.

2 to 2.5 out of 5 stars