Wit and Sin

My review cross-posted from Joyfully Reviewed: http://www.joyfullyreviewed.com/new-reviews/studenstein-by-daisy-harris

Royce Harden is very happy working as a love-bot, thank you very much, and he has no desire to be dragged away from the BDSM club he’s working at, even if it’s a stunning hellcat stein who is doing the dragging. Shani Brown says she’s working with the Zombie Underground, a group working to free steins like him. Royce doesn’t care to be free…until he starts spending time off the grid, away from the influence of his makers.

Shani is allergic to sex — or close enough. As a former sex slave, she has no desire to be intimate with Royce, but when his makers cripple him with punishing pain only orgasm can relieve, Shani can’t leave the stein in pain. As Shani and Royce attempt to evade his makers and get back to ZU headquarters, Shani begins to do the unexpected and fall for the sexy love-bot.

The Love-Bots series gets even better with the second installment, Studenstein. Author Daisy Harris continues to build on the imaginative world she created in Lust After Death, and I found myself fascinated by the history and workings of the steins.

World-building aside, Studenstein is a wickedly erotic romance that turns up the heat at unexpected moments and makes you care about its protagonists. Royce is a love-bot who knows how to make the most of his upgrades, but what interested me more than his sexiness was how he grew as a character over the course of the story. Royce is stubborn and a bit vain at the beginning of Studenstein, but as he gets further away from the life he’s known, readers get to see the “real” Royce emerge, and he’s hot as hell. As for Shani, she’s a tough-as-nails stein who’s a bit snappy and wholly endearing. She was built to be a sex slave and that (understandably) left its mark on her. It wasn’t easy for her to work through her attraction to Royce, but Ms. Harris made the journey well worth it. The only thing that kept Studenstein from being a perfect read for me was the ending, which felt a bit rushed. A big part of the story is Shani’s self-described “allergy” toward sex. Because of this, I’d have really liked to see the resolution of this plotline a bit more developed. That being said, I still loved Studenstein; it’s sexy, interesting, and leaves you wanting more Love-Bots stories.