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Have you ever read a Romance novel and thought to yourself, this is the most ridiculous cliched bullshit I’ve ever read? How did this get published?? I’m obviously in the wrong business…
Well, this is almost that book. But it’s not. Because this book is a cliched ridiculous mess on purpose (which makes it funny). This book has it all: beautiful red-haired “spitfire” heroine (with green eyes, of course); handsome and rich hero; being kidnapped by aliens for weird alien sex; princesses; cat people; assassins….
Well, you get the point. It’s like…everything is here. There is no way this wasn’t written tongue in cheek. How does Brianna communicate with these people from a different galaxy? They use a Medirian ghena instead of a Babel fish…but it’s the same thing and performs the same function. There are also several hints in the book that shows that Mays is writing a comedy.
“I will not panic. I will not lie here shaking and crying like some too stupid to live heroine in a bad romance novel. I can handle this. I will handle this!”
- Chapter 3, pg 37 Brianna
“What was he saying to her? Would he understand her like Miklan did? Why was he naked? What was she doing here? Had she been kidnapped for sex? Were all those lurid stories about alien sex in those trashy tabloids true?
- Chapter 3, page 39 Brianna
“Brianna leaned back and mused silently on her current situation. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined the life she now led. Even though she missed her own family, she was now the pampered daughter of a powerful and rich merchant clan on a planet across the galaxy from her own, married to and pregnant with the child of a sexy alien who absolutely adored her. She’d been adopted into the royal family of another alien culture and managed to become bloodsister to a powerful family of aliens on yet a third planet. No one was capable of imagining this, not even Hollywood’s best scriptwriters.”
- Chapter 16, pg 272
Let’s start by meeting the primary characters:
The Heroine
Brianna is a tall, beautiful, fiery redhead with flashing green eyes. She mistakenly gets taken aboard an alien spaceship but as soon as she’s there the evil sex-crazed alien bad guy tries to get her. She’s saved by her incredible beauty: the handsome rich captain of the ship wants her. So he keeps her in his quarters and marries her to keep her safe (and bonk her silly). She is the MarySue of all MarySues. She is beautiful, she is spunky, she is smart, she is exotic, all the men want her, all the women want to be her friend (except the bitches, all the bitches hate her). Her attitude stinks but everyone finds it adorable and charming. In fact, it makes them like her more. Her red hair is a beautiful vivid red that falls to her waist. In Drakan hair only comes in shades of brown and never gets longer than shoulder length. This is the description we get when the hero first sees Brianna: at this time she’s been wounded (by a man who once tried to rape her, of course) and is unconscious.
“A woman – a beautifully exotic woman.
Fiery read hair tumbled over the side of the table in an auburn waterfall. Pale skin, which any woman in his family would envy, glowed under harsh laboratory lights. Full breasts with rosy nipples rose and fell with harsh breathing. A narrow waist tapered to flared hips where a splash of equally fiery public hair curled at the juncture of her thighs. Long legs stretched to the end of the table.
…The agonized expression on the woman’s face didn’t hide its exotic beauty. Her face was rounder than those of his people, her lips fuller. Stunning green eyes fluttered open and stared unseeing into his. Thick, dark lashes rimmed those eyes while the well-shaped auburn brows above them contrasted sharply with her wan complexion Even with blood seeping from her shoulder, she stirred him as no woman had in a long time.”
- Chapter 2
The Hero
Captain Alalakan don al’ Chardadon (Char) is a tall, handsome, rich alien captain. He is from the planet Drakan where everyone is fixated on sex all the time and they have tails. His people are comfortable with all types of nudity and sex. He decides to marry Brianna to save her from (and destroy) Bakom. His family is very powerful, extremely rich as well as the head of one of the larger clans on Drakan. The family is on a first name basis with royalty.
The Evil Bad Guy
Dr. Rodak don al’ Bakom (Bakom) is a medical doctor as well as an all around horrible person. Even in a world full of 60′s style sexual freedom, Bakom is a kidnapper and rapist. So, of course, he wants to keep and rape Brianna. Brianna is the Most Beautiful of all the beautifuls. He is also the First President of the Academy of Science where – for some reason – newly discovered human forms of life are required to have sex with an examination team to prove their humanity. Ha!! As head of the Academy of Science Brianna – a newly discovered humanoid lifeform – belongs to Dr. Bakom so he can perform the Tests for Humanity on her.
“…You must accept an injection of mithrin into your body. The dosage is such that you would become sexually insatiable from anywhere from four to eight hours, and most if not all of the members of the examining team would have sexual intercourse with you. Once the dosage wore off you would be subjected to a brain scan to determine intelligence quotients. Then you would be given a physical, which would include sexual intercourse without mithrin. If your responses are not satisfactory, you could be declared nonhuman.”
Chapter 2, page 46-47
The Story
Brianna is a biologist working for the military. One day her boss calls her in to assist with a dissection. Shocked that the subjects are humanoid, Brianna steals the aliens and rushes them off the base. The aliens manage to show her where to go but the military were hot on their tail. Since the soldiers chasing Brianna were willing to use deadly force, the aliens take Brianna with them. Now Brianna is the alien. Dr. Bokom steals Brianna as soon as she is transported aboard but Char rescues her. Later Char decides to marry Brianna in order to keep Dr. Bakom from performing his Tests, making her Alalakan dem al’ Brianna. Brianna quickly becomes pregnant, making Chardadon the heir of the Alalakan Clan (meaning he will be the next head of the clan after his father).
During the ride back to Drakan, Brianna is introduced to Princess Merilinlalissa – Meri – from the world Mediria (who are green and have gills). While chatting the princess discovers that Earth has dolphins and orca (killer whales) – also known on Mediria as the sacred dols and orcs who were lost to the Mediria eons ago. This information moves the King of Mediria to adopt Brianna into the royal family. Now Brianna is the wife of a rich and powerful man and a Princess. Alalakan dem al’ Brianna, Princess Hardan.
Later, on Drakan, Brianna is introduced to a rich and powerful family from a different planet named Gattan. The Gatten are a fierce, war-like race of people who resemble humanoid versions of predatory Great Cats (Big Cats). The Gatten are proud, secretive, war-like and easily offended. Normally, saying/doing the wrong thing around a Gatten would cause a blood feud. Brianna pulls one of her snotty moves and manages to become blood-sister to this family. The Gattens all appreciate and revel in Brianna’s bad attitude and worse temper. Of course, they don’t get upset at her actions at all.
All of these families (three rich, powerful families from three different planets) conspire to save Brianna from Bakom, making it an inter-galactic incident. They are able to expose Bakom as the horrible kidnapping rapist he really is.
Wow. Brianna sure gets around, doesn’t she? In every way, in almost every context, this book delivers on the cliche and it delivers hard. But its fun! Lots and lots of fun. There are only two reasons this book gets 4 stars instead of 5: Brianna’s attitude and the oh so bad sex. Brianna is annoying. She’s always snapping at people and confronting people. It’s pretty irritating. But worse that Brianna’s attitude is the sex. The entire book is focused around sex but Brianna has some of the worse sex I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading. The sex is almost cringe worthy, to be honest. But I just skip the sex scenes and go for the rest of the story. Luckily there is very little sex in this book that revolves around sex.
My favorite parts of this book are the Gatten. They are fierce, proud warriors who just make me grin. I feel that the Gattan steal whatever scene they appear in.
While I really enjoy Brianna, I can’t help but to also note issues: one [female] character is raped, one [female] character is raped and tortured. While none of this action takes place on page, it’s still a bit disturbing considering the otherwise lighthearted tone of the book. Which is another point that bothers me – this is a very lighthearted book…but the entire plot actually revolves around the threat of rape and torture.
About Judy Mays
Judy Mays is a really sweet author who wrote really fun and sexy books. She had a full time job as a teacher in a small town…until someone outed her. Somehow someone managed to connect Ms Mays pen name to her real name… and the shit hit the fan. She was reviled in the local media and suspended from her job. I already owned this series but I went and purchased a new copy of Brianna just for support. Later it was said in the comments section:
Just heard from Judy, and I passed her email on to the SB’s, but I thought I’d share here, too. It would seem the women who began this witch hunt should look for new work. it was unsuccessful and Judy’s gotten hoards of support from not just the Snyder County community, but the ROMANCE COMMUNITY!
–Dakota Cassidy
