This guest review is from Danielle Fritz. Danielle is a former librarian who has a special affection for children’s lit and books about the funeral industry. She first cut her criticism teeth as a fanfic writer. A resident of the upper midwest, she’s learned to love beer and tater tot casserole and tolerate long winters. Most nights will find her cuddled up with her pups and wearing out her wrists with yet another crochet project.

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This came up on my radar in a recent Hide Your Wallet. Something about the premise drew me in, though I’m not typically drawn to super hero romances or fake dating tropes, and I quickly purchased a copy. I did see the first Avengers in theaters six times when it came out in 2012, and embarrassingly went to a sparsely attended midnight DVD release party to get myself a copy, so maybe there’s some residual affection for comic book heroes deep in the cold cockles of my heart? But this is not a Joss Whedon special — there are plenty of multi-dimensional non-White characters and far fewer quippy one liners.

Vanessa Theriot is on top of the world. At 34 she heads her own PR firm, and they’ve gotten the opportunity to pitch to a huge potential client. Roland Casteel, aka Pyro, a fiery super hero, is a free agent. At the start of the book, he’s being courted by the two Supernatural organizations that sponsor the Heroes and Villains respectively, the Champions of Earth Collation and the Villains Network of America. It’s similar to an NFL trade. The Champions has selected Vanessa’s proposal as one of several they’re showing Pyro. Her small firm is unlikely to be chosen in comparison to the large corporations also making pitches, but she’s hopeful nonetheless.

Vanessa and her team are confident in their pitch, even if Vanessa herself is on the edge of an anxiety attack ahead of the super’s arrival. But the moment Roland enters the conference room he demands Vanessa vacate, immediately. Something about her presence unsettles the super. Utterly embarrassed and completely terrified, Vanessa flees, clumsily causing a chaotic storm of spilled coffee and dropped paper in her wake.

Cue day drinking in disappointment with her colleagues, being cornered by Roland at the bar, and vomiting all over his sweatsuit.

But the next morning Vanessa is greeted by the CEO of the Champions of Earth Collation, the heroes’ organization outside her door with a 10-year contract. Roland has insisted on working with her PR firm, and furthermore, work directly with Vanessa specifically. He’s especially interested in the Lois Lane clause, which is a brilliant campaign that gives Roland a faux partner to soften his image and build excitement around his personal life. He wants Vanessa to be the Lois to his Superman.

But it’s soon revealed that Roland is under the impression that the agreement means more than just dating. He intends to marry Vanessa.

As he continues to hold my hand and stare at me, his lips tilt down into an uncomfortable grimace. “You never have to talk to anybody in this building—or anywhere else—ever again, Vanessa, but I expect my wife to talk to me and, when she does, to call me Roland, not Mr. Casteel.”

“Your wife?” I glance around, feeling deeply uncomfortable holding his hand like this knowing he has a wife. How did that not come up in our research? “You have a wife?”

He freezes. “Yes. You. Or did you not understand the terms of our deal?”

My jaw unhinges, and my eyes flutter, and my knees go weak, and Mr. Casteel curses as he lunges to catch me.

After some negotiation, they come to an agreement. Vanessa will pretend to be Roland’s girlfriend for 4 years of the 10 year contract. They’ll go to events together, partake in photo ops, etc, and Roland will move into her home. He’s hard-headed, but willing to go along with the changes Vanessa’s team suggests to rehab his image…

Roland is a deeply intense character. There’s a hardness to him that’s immediately off-putting. He’s not cold in his intensity, either, it’s appropriately fiery given his super powers. When he first appears, he’s so disheveled it’s alarming — he’s wearing a shirt with a severely stretched out collar, sweatpants with holes in the knees, scuffed boots with the soles practically falling off, his hair and beard are a hot mess. He’s blunt, beyond the point of being rude.

We only get a handful of chapters from his POV in comparison to the bulk of the book being in Vanessa’s, and it’s immediately clear he is utterly obsessed with Vanessa and has no idea what to do with himself. He’s a lot for a character like Vanessa, who had a childhood full of abuse and suffers from long term ramifications, including PTSD and anxiety. Roland’s whole energy can be triggering at times for her. But throughout the text he works hard to understand her trauma and change his spikey nature to become a safe space for Vanessa.

At times, he comes across as demanding or controlling. But this doesn’t turn Vanessa off; in fact, it becomes clear over time that Roland’s commands are usually a means of centering her when PTSD or anxiety starts sending her towards a spiral. It can be clumsy at times, but I considered that his ham-handed behavior might simply be the only way he initially knows how to react to someone he loves being in distress.

I think this could give a lot of readers the ick, but I found it an interesting dynamic that sort of sits between super liberated heroines vs the omega type passive heroines. Vanessa sets boundaries quickly, but she appreciates Roland’s hyper-protective nature and diligent observation of her emotions. After a deeply traumatic childhood, she’s grateful to have a partner who is deeply obsessed with her. It wouldn’t work for me, but it works for her.

I appreciate that we get more backstory from Vanessa beyond “abusive mother” and “suffers from PTSD.” She’s a wiz at all things PR, a very strong business leader, and much beloved by her team. No one seems to look down on her for her shyness or occasionally awkwardness (though a reader might get secondhand embarrassment).

We’re quickly introduced to Vanessa’s large adoptive family, who she’s been with since the age of 12 after coming to them through the foster care system. If I have one complaint about the characters in this book, it’s that there are 5 brothers in Vanessa’s family and they are indistinct and interchangeable. I get reasons why an author would establish a large family for a character, but it’s ineffective to me if they’re kind of just a blur rather than unique individuals, unless the blur is set up for comedic purposes. I think giving Vanessa just two or three siblings might’ve been more effective. But otherwise I like the positive representation of foster families and the presence of her loving parents.

There was some great trans rep through Vanessa’s best friend and chief marketing officer, Margerie. She is a down-to-earth, vivacious character who is extremely competent in their career. We don’t see any transphobia…

In regards to world building, we’re not getting Tolkien levels of exposition, just enough to grasp what this world looks like with super heroes under contract to corporations. I was definitely left wanting more details about the way these organizations worked, and I’m hopeful the follow up books will give us more insight into how the rival heroes and villains companies operate.

I personally prefer not to be spoon fed world-establishing information. However, we do get some moments where characters just sort of internally dialog with themselves backstory that might’ve otherwise been shown vs told. This mostly crops up when discussing the origins of the supers. Within the first chapter, Vanessa explains how 22 years ago 48 children with abnormal gifts landed throughout the world. Some of these alien children were given to foster families, others were kept in government facilities and examined by the Supernatural Defense Department. It’s definitely a topic that is ripe for exploration in future books. Much like with Superman, there’s more emphasis on framing the “hero” part of these characters over the “alien.”

All in all, this book was a fun romp. There were some truly wild moments of alien biology I won’t spoil, but they were more amusing than horrific. Roland and Vanessa’s tension and chemistry was truly delicious. Their physical relationship was a bit of a slow burn but well worth the wait. As I said, I think some readers might be turned off by their dynamic, but I found the departure more compelling and, while it wouldn’t work for me personally, I was very happy to read how well that dynamic worked for Roland and Vanessa.

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