Seducing Stag by Laurann Dohner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Stag and the crew of the Varnish are on a mission, responding to a distress signal of a freighter that has been attacked by the Markus Models. Instead of finding the enemy, they discover one sole survivor. Nala’s a human, and having suffered at their hands during his time on Earth, there’s no species Stag despises more. But when the petite woman confuses him for an android and tries to order him around, Stag decides she’ll live—and pay for her slights.

Nala Vestria has lost her freighter, her crew and her father, only to become personal maid to a cyborg. Stag is surly, short-tempered, and completely untrusting of humans … not to mention intense, commanding, and maybe the hottest being Nala has ever seen. When she finds him temporarily at her mercy, Nala isn’t sure if she wants to kill him or kiss him. Then again, life is short. She opts for the latter.

Nala swiftly becomes a distraction Stag can’t afford, especially after he’s had a carnal taste of what the woman has to offer. He’ll take her back to Garden, his home planet, and be rid of her — as well as the emotions she evokes. But as their journey home becomes harrowing, Nala may prove to be more of an asset than a liability. To both the ship … and the lonely cyborg who commands her.

Seducing Stag

Stubborn Hearts and Cyborg Seduction

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: ❤️💙💚💜
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😋😉😎🤯
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Solo Narration

Characters and Plot Summary

Seducing Stag drops us straight into a brutal rescue. Stag and his crew aboard the Varnish answer a distress call and discover the aftermath of a Markus Model attack. Nala Vestria is the lone survivor, found injured, naked, bound above a bed rigged with explosives while the androids have murdered her crew and taken what they wanted. The scene immediately establishes just how much Nala has lost, including her father, and I felt for her because she has every reason to believe she is about to die. Stag and his crew initially don’t even think they can save her, but Stag works with the others to disarm the explosives and get her free.

Unfortunately, the rescue does not exactly get their relationship off to a promising start. Nala assumes Stag is an android and treats him accordingly, ordering him around and failing to understand why that comparison is deeply offensive to him. Stag already has a serious distrust of humans because of his experiences on Earth, so he decides Nala needs to learn what it feels like to have her intelligence and autonomy dismissed. His solution is to keep her around as a sort of personal maid.

What I enjoyed most was watching those assumptions slowly get challenged. Stag is determined to remain emotionally detached, while Nala refuses to become the helpless victim he expects her to be. Their journey back toward Garden becomes increasingly dangerous, and Nala proves that she can contribute rather than simply being cargo Stag has to protect.

Highlights and Limitations

The biggest strength for me was the conflict between these two. Stag is absolutely not a sweet hero at the beginning, but his hostility comes from somewhere, and I liked seeing him gradually become protective despite his determination not to care. Nala’s stubbornness worked particularly well because she has already survived something horrific before Stag ever enters the picture.

I also enjoyed the Varnish crew. They provide some humor and personality amid the darker circumstances, and several reader reviews specifically mention the crew as one of the more entertaining parts of the story.

That said, I did have some reservations. The romance takes a while to move beyond anger, attraction, and physical tension, and I wished we had more time seeing Stag and Nala actually become a couple. Several reviews make the same observation, particularly about the relationship and ending feeling rushed. Personally, I wanted more emotional payoff after everything these two put each other through. I also found some of Stag’s treatment of Nala difficult to enjoy, especially considering how traumatized she already was when they met.

Narration

Mindy Kennedy’s narration worked well for this story. She handles the contrast between Nala’s vulnerability after the attack and her much tougher personality as she starts pushing back against Stag. I especially liked how the narration helped sell the irritation and tension between them instead of making every confrontation sound overly dramatic. Listener reviews also praise Kennedy’s handling of the characters and voices.

The audiobook moves through the action smoothly, and Kennedy keeps the pace engaging during the more dangerous portions of the journey. Her performance made it easy for me to settle into the story and distinguish the various personalities aboard the Varnish. I tend to like dual or duet narration more and don’t often listen to solo narration audiobooks, but I like Laurann Dohner’s stories. I have read quite a bit of them and grabbed this audiobook when it went on sale.

Final Thoughts

I had a fun, occasionally frustrating time with Seducing Stag. It has the combination of science fiction, danger, strong attraction, and stubborn characters that keeps me coming back to the Cyborg Seduction series. I particularly liked seeing Stag’s attitude toward Nala change because he fights that change so hard. Watching a cyborg who insists he doesn’t want anything to do with humans slowly realize that one particular human has become important to him was probably my favorite part.

My biggest wish is that the romance had been given more room to breathe. After all the hostility and tension, I wanted more than a relatively quick transition into their happily-ever-after. Still, Nala’s strength, Stag’s reluctant protectiveness, the entertaining crew, and the continuing threat from the Markus Models made this an enjoyable installment for me. It may not be my favorite book in the series, but I definitely wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Stag and Nala when it ended.

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