Title Summer of the Unicorn Series --- Author Kay Hooper Cover Art --- Publisher Bantam - 1988 First Printing Bantam - 1988 Category Romance Warnings Explicity sex Main Characters Hunter, Boran, Siri Main Elements Unicorns

HE WAS BORN OF MYTH ... BUT THEY LOVED AS MORTALS

They were of two different worlds and during one fateful summer, those worlds would converge in a spectacular mountain valley. Siri, warrior, sorceress and siren, the gorgeous Keeper of the last herd of golden unicorns. And Hunter Morgan, myth-seeker, whose ordained quest has led him to this strange place and to Siri. She is woman incarnate, whose purity is akin to her life. He is man personified, whose needs run deep. They were born to be lovers, to come together at this time of enchantment to solve the riddle of their doom--each other's touch--and to fight alone and together against a powerful foe whose evil menace threatened them ... and their worlds.

Ah...ok, let's start this with a statement that I'm not a reader of romances. In fact I figured I'd be doing some eyerolling while reading this book (you know, there will be a lot of flexing biceps and bouncing boobs, and sex at really awkard moments, like when the characters are half dead, or the enemy is about to descend on them...for what it's worth, it didn't really have these things). But I wanted to read as many different unicorns books as I could in a year, and I hadn't read a romance yet.

But...yeah, this one didn't do it for me. Ok, I think the MeToo movement can take things too far, you know just 'cause a guy glances your way is not immediately sexual harassment. But it's a little disturbing to read a book where the main male character is so in "love" with the main female character that he thinks to himself he won't be able to stop himself from raping her. Of course he won't in the end, he's the good guy (will say more about the bad guy later) but let's just say he's on the verge of just ripping her clothing off against her will. And that's the other part, her will. Of course, it's a romance so she does want him too, but she made a decision, she would forgo the touch of man to take care of her unicorns. It's a sacred duty and she loves then and if she loses her virginity (unicorns remember?) she won't be able to protect them anymore, the hunters will come, and they will go extinct. So she tells the main male character to leave...repeatedly. But he just keeps picturing them together, how she gets excited in his arms, and decides that even though she made a choice of her own, she must be wrong, that the right choice is to be with him. UGH! Stalker!?! Pervert? Rapist? The girl said no. She had a good reason for saying no (the last of a mythical species rests on her NOT having sex with him). And I didn't for a second feel that one actually loved the other. It was lust. Love and lust is not the same thing. Lust is where you think the most important thing about a relationship is having sex. Love is where you accept the wants of another even if your personal desires will be unsatisfied. Or at least a love where they could stay together for the rest of their lives and remain chaste, they could protect the unicorns together, be together, so long as the main male character kept his pants on. But on no, remember, he can't be in the same room as her because he "loves" her so much all he can think about is her naked beneath him.

Now with a protagonist as sexually inappropriate as that, you need a really, really nasty villain to make the other guy look good. The bad guy is so two-dimensional it's not even fun. He does nothing all day but think about how he is going to seduce the girl, then have sex with her, then life the mental block he has on her just at the right moment so she can realize what she's done just as he's thrusting inside her, and he'll make the other guy watch to boot. Oh, and someone he's supposed to gain her power, return to his home planet with a unicorn horn and become king of his people too.

Yes, planet. Oddly, for the magical premise, this is actually a science fiction book (if you assume unicorns might have existed in our past and were protected by alien Guardians who didn't want them to go extinct).

Another negative is that for most of the book, nothing happens except our good guy spending all this time trying to convince the girl to love him (i.e. hump each other). It's slow as a soap opera. However for all the above, there is a silver lining. The unicorns are a key part of the story, they have personalities, and I really enjoyed reading the scenes with them (especially baby Rayne and her itchy horn). And while the protagonists are not discussing their sexual impass, they are discussing dreams. Our main male has come here to prove to his people unicorns exist, that dreams can be real. Our girl on the other hand, much wiser (in fact the guys is kind of dumb as a rock, well intentioned that he is) points out the moment you prove a dream is real, it is no longer a dream. A myth becomes merely fact. A unicorn becomes no more interesting a creature than a girafe or a rhinoceros. So not only can our poor leading man not get the girl, he can't get a unicorn either! But I enjoyed the philosophical discussions about dreams and whether societies fail because they lose their dreams, or they lose their dreams because their are failing.

I didn't hate the book, but I really don't get the appeal of romances where you can tell the guy is so in "love" with the girl that he proves it by ignoring all her wishes and basically pushing her till she has to give up. I mean that is NOT the kind of guy I want to fall in love with, one who doesn't take no as an answer. That's not romantic, that's sexual harassment. It doesn't even matter that the girl is attracted to him as well, she made a choice to rise above her physical reaction to his male member and decided to follow a path of duty and honour. But he didn't have the honour to accept her choice, and in some ways, made him worse than the villain, who at least admits his selfish desires to himself, and accepts he's doing what he's doing to serve himself while the protagonist convinces himself that the girl having sex with him is in her best interest and that he's only seducing her to help her...has nothing to do with is own "throbbing loins" oh no...only thinking of her...spending her life without having sex with him must be cruel punishment and he should do something to remedy that...sigh.