Review: Tower in the Woods

Reviewed by Jen
 

I always feel chagrined when I accidentally fall into a BDSM situation.  I don't enjoy the genre and I didn't realize that's what I was picking up when I accepted this book for review. Here's the blurb:

When she sees a man fleeing a horde of zombies, Nel Zapur has no choice but to extend a lifeline. But what will happen to her once Dane Prince reaches the tower’s top? Based on the Grimm’s fairy tale Rapunzel, Tower in the Woods is a post-apocalyptic thriller, complete with zombies, snipers, a fateful snowstorm and . . . a hot, alpha male!

Raised by the Women’s Independent Territory Church (WITCH), Nel Zapur is a skilled sniper tasked to eliminate zombies. Never having once laid eyes on a man, she has been a prisoner in her tower for eleven long years. A fateful snowstorm leads a mysterious stranger to her window, and saving him may prove to be the best and worst decision of her life.

Special Agent Dane Prince was sent to gather intelligence on the WITCH, and his journey leads him to a mysterious tower in the woods. Snowed in with a virginal member of the feminist cult, Dane is determined to use the situation to his advantage. Not only will Nel provide him with the information he needs, she will also learn to submit to his every desire.

Perhaps I should have seen the word "submit" and knew that meant the hero would tie up the heroine with a rope of zombie hair that doubled as a noose around her neck while he took her virginity... but then again, maybe not.  Regardless of what I expected, here we are.

I liked the concept of the book: tough soldier comes face to face with a woman who has never seen a man before.  Nel may be a virgin, but she is tough --both inside and out. She would have to be, to endure the solitude she's had.  I liked her. She knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to ask for it.  Dane, however... Well, I already told you how he took her virginity. Then, after she almost died, he spanked her with his belt for it.  He yelled at her for escaping her tower.  He made her take it hard and painfully on the hood of the car, while he knew other soldiers were watching... It just was so not my cuppa tea.

The offputting (to me) BDSM stuff aside, there's a scene early in the book that is in there twice --once from each character's perspective. I was so confused reading the dialogue again, two pages apart, it took me five minutes of staring at my nook to realize why they were saying the same things again.  --And then, we had an Epilogue which was completely outside of the tone and feel of the rest of the book.

This was really not good for me, though in all honesty, at least half it is because the sex and treatment of heroine at the hands of the hero is really not something I enjoy reading.

Rating: D

*Book provided by author for review

Click to purchase: Amazon

Tower in the Woods

by Tara Quan

Release Date: January 14, 2013

Publisher: Liquid Silver Books