It’s been a while since my last post! But with this year’s existential crisis down – and hopefully no more coming for at least a little bit – I’m ready to get back down to business.
The Ironside Academy books – starting with Plier – are a reverse harem/why choose series set in the omegaverse. As a slight twist from the standard omegaverse fare, this series features a new class – sigmas – who are hyper-empathic, can literally siphon a person’s emotions, and are for whatever reason considered worse than the dog shit on your shoe. It’s really extreme and I feel bad for Isobel – the protagonist – but after a couple of chapters of just nonstop sad-sacking about how bad her place in society is, it got almost comical. I mean, the girl sleeps in a broom closet – without a bed – because the school literally forgot about her.
The biggest selling point, though, is the mates: as in, there are ten of them, and this is not a pack-style universe. There’s some guilt involved, some denial, and definitely some jealousy (like you’d normally expect from 10 alphas trying to share a woman), but the books work through it in a pretty satisfying way. Shockingly, the men were also pretty distinct from each other; I very rarely had to look up the names to make sure I had them straight, and I have the memory of a fainting woodpecker. I had to look up Isobel’s name three times just writing this review.
I didn’t really have any complaints about the series until I got to the most recent book – book 4, Relever. The story is framed around, essentially, a huge talent competition, and it really seemed like the author was very excited to finally be at a point where she could go into the details of their various performances. This is cool in theory – and if you’re really into singing and dancing and that sort of thing, maybe it’s 100% up your alley – but I could have done without several pages breaking down the individual voice style of each man. I’ll admit it: after a certain point, I skimmed.
This series came to me as a surprise. It’d been on my TBR for quite a while, since I’ve seen it recced pretty much everywhere, but I assumed the hype was just all hype. Friends, I was wrong. I tore through the first book, then the rest of the released series like a fiend. I haven’t gone through a series that fast in a very long time. The spice starts off very slow, but it escalates alarmingly fast, and it’s well done.
The Steamy Stuff – Spoilers!
The first kiss in the series doesn’t happen until after the halfway mark of the first book! You probably know that that’s not my usual style. But once they get started, they go fast. Isobel goes from being fingered in a supply closet to losing her virginity to a full-on orgy in the space of, I believe, about twelve hours. Nobody wants to commit to the mating bond at first, so they’re all basically driven crazy with lust until they give in.
There’s group stuff, couple stuff, solo stuff, bondage, exhibitionism… nothing super out of the ordinary, but the third and fourth books are really spice-heavy, and they keep it consistent. I’m really looking forward to book 5 – Glisser – being released hopefully in December.
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