Review: fantasy, romance, dubiously heroic hero
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2012
If I were going to draw a line in the sand, and on one side of the line are the alphahole heroes who make me melt and on the other side are the alphahole heroes who make me violently angry, the hero of Rogue's Pawn, Rogue, would be like...straddling the line, right on top of it, but with half of one foot firmly in "violently angry."I usually like alphahole heroes. And I like them best when they're consistent, always the hard edge instead of running hot and cold, as well as unrepentant, up front and accepting of their darker nature. That describes Rogue to a T. He is so consistent and so unrepentant that 80%, 90% of the way through the novel I was thinking, "Oh, so I guess this is the start of a series? Because there's no way on earth this romance is resolving any time soon."Somehow I was wrong.But let me back up a little. Rogue's Pawn is actually really cool. It's got that crack quality - at moments the language is quite lovely, at others quite profound, and then sometimes it has that clunky, unpolished, unmistakably addictive pure crack quality. And the worldbuilding is actually quite cool, in odd, unexpected ways. The way the fairies are compared to insects, their bizarre, insane approach to war, their total heartlessness. I liked the quirks of the automatic translation Gwynne experiences, her scientific approach to magic.But at 92,000 words it feels incomplete, ending abruptly with everyone still in the first act of their character arc. And it's sprawling and overambitious. The heroine, Gwynne, transitions from life as a scientist to living in a fairy world, a painful crash course that leaves her at the mercy of a horde of vicious fairies. Her closest ally -- Rogue -- also turns out to be her chief abuser, and he cheerfully sells her into years of servitude. The romance (if you can call it that) trickles through as Gwynne is shuttled off to a series of cruel masters who alternately torture and pamper her.And Gwynne is a cool heroine. She's smart and clear-eyed about everything. Torture changes her, but doesn't break her -- believably. She comes up with some ingenious solutions to difficult problems, and her trials don't numb her to the suffering of others. In a way, it's her many admirable qualities that ruin the romance. She thinks about how much she hates Rogue, she compiles lists of his bad behavior, she fantasizes about escaping from him...and I thought, 'Hey, right on, totally, let's ditch that guy and get outta here.'Rogue's Pawn does appear to be a series starter, which is heartening - it could go some really great places. But the ending of this book was rushed and unsatisfying. Kennedy shoehorns in a resolution to the love story that just does not belong. Rogue spends the whole novel trying, basically, to brainwash and roofie Gwynne into submission. And she spends the whole novel fighting the good fight and wishing him dead.Rogue supports her in some crucial ways, and I can imagine him really redeeming himself in another book or two (preferably after Gwynne has delivered a good ass kicking) but instead at the last minute Gwynne decides to toss all her objections and we get an awkward, confusing, emotionally unsatisfying HEA or HFN...it's hard to tell.I gave this three stars when I thought it was a stand alone. Bumped it up to four now that I see it's part of a series, in hopes that the author will cancel out the dumb ending of Book 1 or offer the explanations/extended love story the book needs. So an optimistic, fragile four stars.