I’m very, very picky when it comes to purchasing books. I have to really, really love them if they’re going to sit on my shelf. Which is why I don’t buy many books. And it’s also why once a year I’ll go through everything on my shelf and decide if there’s anything I can get rid of.

This time I found a few books I could live without, and here they are.

Amanda Rose by Karen Robards

The first of three Karen Robards books I’m freeing myself from, this historical romance is just plain icky. A young woman (and by young I mean freaking seventeen) discovers a convict on the beach, helps him heal, and as they’re falling for each other, he’s captured and believes she betrayed him when really it was her brother. Out for revenge, he kidnaps her and takes her aboard his ship, refusing to believe her when she tells him over and over that she didn’t betray him. Not only that, but he basically rapes her (she’s not prepared for their first time and he doesn’t help prepare her so she understandably decides she hates sex and when she tells him that after he kidnaps her, he tells her he’ll change her mind). It’s all pretty appalling and ends with him finally realizing she didn’t betray him and telling her he loves her. But he did nowhere near enough groveling for me. Due to the hero being a giant dick, I’m removing this from my shelf.

Dark Torment by Karen Robards

Here we have yet another Karen Robards historical where the hero is a big ass (are you sensing a theme here)? This time, we have a man who is mistaken for someone else and sent to Australia as a convict. He’s hired at a farm by the father of plain, no-nonsense Sarah. Though she feels an instant attraction to him, she tries to keep her distance. He taunts her and teases her until a moment turns sexual and then he ends up taking her hostage but she turns the tables and takes him hostage and then they make love and she discovers he wasn’t lying about his true identity. But the story takes a bizarre turn at the end when he thinks she betrayed him and goes home and then returns a few months later to find her pregnant with his child. He then proposes and it’s happily ever after. And again, the heroine just jumps into his arms, hardly mad at all. Absolutely infuriating.

Green Eyes by Karen Robards

Our final Karen Robards book is also another historical romance where the hero acts like a giant douche canoe to the heroine. A woman is shocked when her dead husband’s long-lost brother turns up and disturbed by her attraction to him. He’s also attracted to her but is nasty to her to hide it (how romantic). They end up sleeping together but she utters her dead husband’s name while dozing in the afterglow and he’s furious. He treats her like crap before finally softening at the end when she almost dies. Fuck you, dude. Fuck. You.

Surrender to Me by Shayla Black

This book is a contemporary erotica that is part of a series. I actually own the first two books and love them a lot. But this one…oy. Our hero, Hunter, is in Vegas to help out a friend. The friend is casually dating our heroine, Kata, who wants a threesome for her birthday. The second Logan sees Kata, he decides she’s his soul mate. Kata is also attracted to him but after fooling around, she’s freaked when Logan wants to see her again. She leaves…then wakes up the next morning with a ring on her finger. Turns out she got drunk and then she and Logan got married. Logan wants to stay married (and a manipulative d-bag who talked a tipsy woman into getting hitched because he’s a freaking psycho and Kata wants a divorce. There’s a lot of back and forth and Logan acting creepy as hell and I don’t find it romantic at all. On the plus side, Shayla Black writes really hot sex scenes but that’s not enough for me to keep the book.

Claiming Alexis by Susan Stoker

I bought this book because I like one scene. One. It happens towards the middle where the main character, Alexis, is drunk and babbles all kinds of embarrassing stuff to her love interest. The rest of the book is stupid and dragged out and the sex scenes are just not good.

Sweet Restraint by Beth Kery

More erotica that just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I really liked this book the first time I read it (because why else would I have bought it) but after rereading it recently I have some problems. The first being that it has one of the conflicts I hate in romance; someone breaks up with someone for their own safety/good and doesn’t tell them why and then when the two meet again, she refuses to tell him the truth about why she dumped him and it’s dragged out until almost the end of the novel purely to create conflict. So stupid.

Everything for Us by M. Leighton

Another book where I didn’t realize until rereading it that the hero is a total dickhead. In this one, the hero treats the heroine like crap for most of the novel and the worst part is that towards the end, he leaves town, stays away for almost THREE MONTHS, then shows up at a wedding to reclaim the heroine. And she just falls into his arms. She’s not mad or upset which is fucking bullshit. Goodbye, book. Not going to miss having you on my shelf.