Wed to the Alien Gladiator by January Bell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Things were improving between us… that is, until he got the bright idea to kidnap me.

I never thought I’d be tricked into an arranged marriage with an alien warlord. Still, it’s been easy enough to keep my former gladiator husband at arm’s length. But once my translator starts working, the hulking himbo decides he’s tired of waiting and freaking kidnaps me.

I wake in a picturesque seaside village, and the big lug is only too happy to inform me that it’s all part of his plan to give us time to fall in love. Strangely enough, it turns out he was listening when I told him I loved historical mysteries, because he’s brought me to Sueva’s own unsolved mystery: a once thriving town where all occupants vanished without a trace.

My overthinker brain is all too easily sucked into the riddle— and maybe even the idea of Alvez. Except… the reason the villagers disappeared? It’s not stuck in the past, and we’re in trouble. If Alvez and I want to escape the same fate, we’ll have to rely on each other… and I’ll have to stop over analyzing my feelings about him.

Wed to the Alien Gladiator

Fun adventure and mystery!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙❤️💚
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍
Character development: 😤🙁😋😘
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Michelle – she is one of an all-female mission to Suevan territory. The women thought they were on a mission to open communications with the Suevan warriors and get technology to protect Earth. They found out that their own government sold them out after they learned the ‘welcoming ceremony’ was really a marriage ceremony. Michelle was not happy about her new situation. She did her best to steer clear of her new husband Alvez. She has an anxiety disorder that she had hidden from the federation and is now out of her medication.

The Hero: Alvez – he was kidnapped by their enemy, the Roth when he was a child and forced to be a gladiator for more than a decade. Now he wants nothing more that to bond with his new human mate. When one of his brother warriors tells him about the romance books of his wife’s that he has been reading to learn how females like to be treated and lets him know that the males in the books often kidnap the females, which is a beloved human custom. Alvez thinks that is a good way to spend alone time with his new wife who has been staying with the other women and rarely spends time with him.

The Story: Michelle had been really excited for the mission; she thought that her government thought she was capable and that all her years of study had finally come to fruition. She had been very depressed at the start of the book and was getting drunk and complaining about her lot in life. I was afraid she would be quite a whiner throughout the book. So, I was pleasantly surprised at how she took her kidnapping in stride, especially after she understood that Alvez thought it was something human males often did for their females.

I also liked the fact that Alvez took Michelle to a place on the planet where there is a historical mystery. He remembered she had once told him that she liked figuring out things from the past like that. The two of them get involved in discovering what happened to the people in the past in the beach town where he took her and end up in their own adventure. As soon as I read the blurb on this one, I was hoping they would find a tree with the word croatoan written on it, so I was surprised when Alvez was telling the story and there was a rock with the word otadiam instead. Then Michelle mentions how much it sounds like the roanoke disappearance. I guess great minds think alike.

This book had a great story; I have been really enjoying this series so far. Every book has had a different setting and a completely different plot despite having similar backstories for the women and the way they got to the Suevan planet. I liked the mystery of this one as well as the suspense, and the fact that the two main characters found a pet, a dog-like creature. I love when there are alien pets in a book, they always add a fun component.

This audiobook was told in dual points of view via dual narration and was narrated by Mason Lloyd and Hollie Jackson. These two are terrific narrators, especially for alien romances. They are both expressive and are able to do multiple voices for different characters. Hollie Jackson overacts a bit but is otherwise very easy to listen to and Mason has a nice deep voice that I enjoy.

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