The Quarry Master:
A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy
(The Grumpy Heroes Book 1)
Amanda Milo
Super Cute, Funny, Re-Readable SciFi Romantic Comedy
Blurb:
BASH: I dislike people.
I despise humans.
A cruel mandate from one of my region’s rulers has saddled me with a slew of little alien humans: I’m to put them to work.
One problem?
I run a rock quarry, where humans’ thin skin is a detriment to productivity.
Overseeing these humans is like trying to herd yanaks. If I don’t burn, beat, or strangle them to death by the day’s end, it will be a miracle.
ISLA:I can tell the boss likes me, because I’m not dead. Bash is abrasive and acerbic, like some sort of alien love child between Michael Caine and Miss Hannigan. And maybe Ebenezer Scrooge. Bash is a little… anti-human race.
But he’s not all bad. Sure, he’s a little growly and he sets things on fire when he gets mad, but even villains need a friend. And here? Bash is everybody’s villain.
Everybody’s but mine.
Warning: This book is the slowest of slow burns. It’s a 127K standalone story with the personal puzzle parts not snapping together until the last stretch of the book. If you want to sink your teeth into a romance that hits the fireworks level fast, skip on this one. But if you want a sweet slow burn, then this one might be the book for you. (Especially if you love super grouchy heroes with big horns and bigger attitudes.)
Amanda Milo remains one of my all-time favorite authors! This is extraordinarily funny and cute. It continues and is an off-shoot of the best scifi romantic comedy series I’ve ever read: the Stolen By An Alien series. I loved that we got to see many of the stars from past books here.
Bash is a Rakhii, one of the very alien aliens we first met in Stolen By An Alien. Milo has done a terrific job of galaxy-building, giving the Rakhii a rich culture. I loved the grumpy Bash and the perfectly-imperfect Isla. Isla was born with only one and a half arms and has adapted wonderfully.
As the blurb said, it’s a slow burn. Isla starts off as the only human that Bash can tolerate, mainly because she is a diligent worker. Isla’s attraction to Bash is evident from the start, but she gets friendzoned.
I still do a whole lot of Bash-ogling though, because who would miss this opportunity to ogle his acres of muscle? I know for a fact a whole slew of women do it with me when Bash raises the hem of his shirt to wipe a speck of dust from the corner of his eye.
Rocks clatter to the quarry floor, and there is this giant collective sigh. It sounds like fifty women just had a polite orgasm.
But Bash is a cool friend to have.
He’s like the first cactus plant you ever get to see: you know it’s spiny and prickly and could hurt you, but you’re driven to poke at it anyway.
One of these characters wants to wait until marriage, and it’s not the one you’d think! Which is a great twist.
I do love a good pun! This time based on a pitchfork.
“They were fine until you panicked. Settle yourself—and let’s fork.”
A chuckling cough has me glancing to the Rakhii leaning against the kiln’s doorway. He folds his arms over his chest and sends me a shit-eating grin. “Sorry. That word still sounded like something else to me.”
Bash’s hand tightens on my thigh before he lets me go with a grunted, “Isla. Chatter.”
I start talking. And we fork. We fork for a long time. There’s a lot of vines.
Now Isla says herself that if she were willingly abducted, chained to a bed, and put into a chastity belt on Earth, she’d have the man responsible for this arrested and herself in therapy. But this is an alien world with an alien culture and Isla is very much aware of the cultural meanings of these things there. They very much equal the committed relationship she desperately wants! So if you can’t see beyond these things, this is not the novel for you! Some reviewers have complained that Bash is abusive, and he would be considered as such here on Earth! But context is everything. If Isla is happy about it, I’m happy for her. I’m a fan of “dark romance”, so these things don’t bother me, especially in this context. Bash is very vocal about hating humans, but it’s really the Gryfalla that he hates because one broke his heart. Humans can be mistaken for Gryfalla, so this hate gets transferred. But we learn that Bash actually has a gooy soft center and a heart of gold.
I can’t recommend this enough. These will always be re-readables for me!
Contains graphic sex scenes, really only one.
Occasional foul language.
1st person present tense from Bash and Isla.
Errors: 1 comma that should be a period. Amazing!
452 Pages
$3.99 at Amazon and part of Kindle Unlimited.
V. B. Law 