I picked up this book because I saw it on a list of books you should read despite the terrible cover. This cover is terrible, there’s a woman kneeling at the feet of a man on a horse doing his best “I am a noble hero pose” and she’s reaching up to polish his boots with a look that says “Tada!, here’s this douche.” I found this book…meh, I guess. I suppose it is a sign that I bought it and read it in January and I haven’t picked up the next book in the series yet.
The world in Resenting the Hero is plagued by natural disasters, and there are children born on the world that can feel the disaster coming and draw the forces of the event away, but they need help to shield their bodies from the beating that they take. There is an organization called Triple S that takes in the children (called Sources) and the people they discover can help the Sources (called Shields) and train them in an Academy. Dunleavy (Lee) Mallorough is a Shield, waiting to be chosen by her Source. She meets Karish, a Source with great charism with the eye rolling nickname of The Stallion and they are matched as Source and Shield when she is Chosen. They are bonded for life. She doesn’t know much about him aside from his widespread reputation of being a rake.
I like the troupe of the lovable rake based in all of the historical romances that I have read, but Karish proves his heart of gold quickly in the story and Lee NEVER changes her attitude towards him. It just makes no sense and grated on me a lot. Even when Karish is kidnapped and taken to another town by an non chosen Source who is trying to unionize Shields who are treated unfairly by their Sources, Lee goes to rescue him because if anything happens to him, she’ll die too. I thought after Karish gets kidnapped and Lee tries to find him the story dragged a lot. I did like that Lee is not a victim, and comes to the rescue of her partner. I was relieved when Lee finally stopped disliking Karish for no reason. I thought the ending of the story was satisfying. Then I read the teaser for the next story in the series called The Hero Strikes Back and the tone of the relationship between Lee and Karish is completely different. To the point that I had to check and see if a different author wrote the book. Maybe at some point I’ll pick it up again. It is unfair of me to base a series on the first book, so I should.