Okay I have issues

And I am a cranky reader, with many issues.
I am also in a crankier than normal mood tonight. There is also a kind of spoiler below.
So you have been warned.

Now I love Nalini Singh and absolutely adore the psy/changeling series. But two of the recent books have really hit personal buttons with me.
I won't go too much into Mercy and Riley's book, which was a wallbanger for me, but it was read a while ago. I will simply say, that I was disappointed with how unequal some aspects of the relationship was, despite them being both of equal pack rank.

But Play of Passion, which I finished today, I just have to rant about.
Admittedly it took me a long time to read it as I took some baggage into it, I was struggling with left over issues from Mercy's book.. But I got through it in the end, and I thought Singh actually did a good job with many aspects of the power dynamic... even though I feel she wussed out and made Drew still dominant.
But then she lost me.
Apparently Drew is a super sekrit ALPHA alpha, who hasn't finished his "growing" into his dominance. WTF?
Seriously is it just that impossible in a romance novel to have a heroine be even the slightest bit more dominant than her hero??? (And let's face it, realistically he wasn't less dominant, there was just the illusion of it re. pack hierarchy, BUT NO we couldn't even have that!)
Head meet desk.
Then once I closed the book after the last page, with my buttons pushed, I started thinking back on the book. Now there are several instances where NS is blatantly pushing the okay for females not to be dominant, how all aspects needed in pack, with Indigo's mother, one of the teens, etc. Which is all well and good, even the maternal leanings of most of those gets past my (often militant feminist) radar, but then I realised... there are no examples of non-dominant males. Huh?
Is it not okay for a male to be non-dominant? Is it only maternal females that it is cool for???
Then I remembered the boy from the start of the book that Indigo and co were counselling, but I went back and in the final scene with him, there are the comparisons between him and the alpha, which kinda rules out him not being dominant..

So I was left with a big pile of WTF, all my hackles raised, and needing to rant.
(It probably a good thing, that this blog does not have any readers yet. *grin*)

As a fellow reader pointed out, it is escapism, bluh, bluh.. but STILL!
And yes, I know that was mature. *rolls eyes* I just disagree that I am actually fully coming at this from my Women's Studies background, (though I acknowledge that it is part of the equation) it is also coming from me as an escapist reader. I do not find it romantic when the power dynamic is so often unequal, it just pulls me out of believing in the happy ending in many ways.
And it confounds me that it is acceptable to have a hero be so much more dominant/powerful than a heroine, but you can't even have a heroine even the slightest bit more dominant than a hero??
And that it is always stressed so??

Now this is a regular rant of mine, and some have argued that the women are often not weaker, they keep them in line maternally or emotionally, or whatever, but why can't this be flipped around to the bloke? Why can't he provide this role, and the female be dominant?

And how typical, that my first decent sized post on this blog, is a complete and utter rant, which probably makes little to no sense.
Maybe I'll edit it tomorrow, when I have calmed down a little.

PS. I don't mean to bag out Nalini completely, this is an issue I have with a LOT of books from the genre. She just has the misfortune of being an auto-buy author, with two recent releases which have hit my buttons completely, so she catches the brunt.

PPS. Play of Passion is actually a fun read, and if you do not have my baggage, which would be most of the world it is an awesome book you should enjoy. As usual Nalini Singh's world-building and characters rock.

Random shout out for cat lovers in Melbourne

The Cat Protection Society, Greensborough are on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/CPSvictoria
Seriously if you are ever after a kittie, I can not recommend these guys enough.
Here is their website:
http://www.catprotection.com.au/

That is where the bookcat came from

Another ummm interesting cover.

I'm not sure whether I am more disturbed by the heroine or the hero on this cover...
While the heroine looks terminally ill, the red-headed hero looks like a professor I had at uni, who was in his sixties.
It is just awkward.. and gloomy... and disturbing.

Especially when you factor in the cheery type from the front cover: "If you reach for the stars, your hands may remain empty." Doctor on the Snow by Leslie Lance.

I have run out of tubs..

Which means it is time to have a sale at girrlitsbooks.com.au

Though I just brought a massive bookshelf, which will help with some of the storage problems.. but really, why do I only seem to move ten books from each tub?? I know there are seventy-five tubs to choose from.. but hey.


Yes I have too much stock.

Seriously

If you have not read the Mercy Thompson series, what is stopping you??
I have gotten no work done for two days.. as I found some of the Patricia Briggs in a stack.

Mercy is awesome, that is all.

When was the last time..

You heard a romance hero referred to as "a spoilt and sheltered artist"??

The bleak wilds of Yorkshire in February are not an appealing destination by any standards and to Julian Hurst, a sheltered and spoilt artist from London, the prospect was daunting. Furthermore, on his arrival at the house where he was to catalogue a collection of paintings, he made two disconcerting discoveries... He found that the owner, a miserly old man, rationed the coal for heating what was, in Julian's view the coldest, gloomiest mausoleum he had ever encountered. Next he met the cook, a pretty young lady named Alexandra Bell with whom he was forced to bargain for the very blankets on his bed.
For the first time in his life, Julian Hurst suddenly found himself accepting defeat in the face of a pair of cool blue eyes that seemed to be laughing at him...

The Cuckoo in Spring by Elizabeth Cadell here

A fun blog to check out.

PS. This is probably an odd spot to put the thingy, but this blog newbie couldn't figure out where else to put it, and it also bumps up my poor blog count. *shrug*