Elaine White's Life in Books

Review will be included in a full Volume review of Warders: Volume 1.

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It's really nice to see an established couple getting some page time, since they go through trials and difficulties just as much as new couples. Leith and Simon are cute together, both big strong men who are vulnerable with each other. However, their relationship felt wrong in so many ways. It was the main reason that I gave this story a lower rating than the others. It didn't feel good. It felt forced and more sexual, physical or lust-filled – however you want to describe it – than based on something real and deeper, like the other relationships.
First off, my pet peeve is the whole pouncing-on-a-stranger thing that happens in the first flashback to how Leith and Simon met – which isn't separated or italicised like the other flashbacks in the previous books.
Secondly, I had a real issue with their relationship. It was the unhealthiest relationship I've read in a while – including some Master/slave stuff this past week. To start with, I'm all for spontaneous sex, especially for an established couple, but this right here has two strangers tangling tongues after two minutes, then one giving the other a 'deep rimming' a minute after that. Now, there's no request for consent, there's not even a whisper of hygiene care (except a vague admission of having recently having had a shower) and Leith actually says “What're you...no, wait, you – God!” and is told to shut up when he follows that with “You shouldn't do–”
Now, I'm sorry, but that's dubious consent in the very least and practically rape. I don't care if the first part ended with God! or if he moaned; that's no excuse or reasoning for what follows. The fact that this story presents this situation as somehow sexy or exciting really, REALLY, doesn't work for me. A simple rephrasing of the description, a question asking for consent or, you know, actually BACKING OFF when the guy says no is definitely needed.
It doesn't help that their relationship – especially the excessive sex (four big, detailed scenes when only two – when Simon first bottoms and the first sex scene in Hell – are needed) – is littered with words like 'invasion', 'stalked' and 'assaulted'. I'm sorry to say that everything about this relationship is unhealthy, borderline frantic and definitely fuelled by lust, no matter what lessons Simon claims to have learned later on. I wasn't surprised by the following quote, as it seems natural for Leith to persistently instigate sex if that's the only time he feels true affection and truly feels needed by Simon. “He liked to start his day with me bending him over the bed. I never argued.”
Furthermore, it felt like two stories crammed into one. The first being Simon dealing with his ex, the second being the façade in Hell. They didn't seamlessly merge into one story, even at the end when it had all blown over, though I get that both incidences were supposed to teach Simon to open up more within his relationship with Leith. However, it just came across as disjointed and two split stories.
For me, this story lets the other two down. It just has too many issues.

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Favourite Quote

““Why wouldn't Jackson just come himself, or Leith? I asked, my voice cracking on my boyfriend's name. I had been missing the man before my world took a turn into the creature-feature nightmare, but now I felt like my skin hurt because he wasn't there to hold me.”