Barbarian’s Redemption by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians #13)

Unlucky book 13. It had a bit of a mountain to climb with me because Bek, the alien love interest in this series has been a total tool in previous books where he was a secondary or tertiary character.

Elly and a few other humans are bought at Bek’s request so that the unmated males of the tribe can have mates. Elly has been a slave for years now and to cope, keeps herself dirty, small, and quiet. She is a walking PigPen. Bek is initially uninterested in her, hoping he will resonate to another but his cootie has other ideas and sings for Elly.

Bek was really great at giving Elly space and consent; about taking their time getting to know each other and he wasn’t a dick to her, so that helped. Bek is capable of learning from his mistakes and the social learning to care for your mate above all else really helped him proceed cautiously and caringly with Elly.

This book and Elly, do a great job teaching him that buying slaves is never ok. Elly really “humanizes” Bek and loves him for his dickhole attitude. It made me like him, but he’s still an ass.

I liked this one. It changed my mind about Bek, but I still don’t love him. -Ford

CW: Slavery, sexual abuse (off the page, historical), trauma responses