“But then, life is in the journey. If you cannot have an easy journey, have an interesting story.”
Today I've decided to come and talk about The Last Hour of Gann, an incredible book written by R. Lee Smith author of Beautiful Dead and The Lords of Arcadia saga.
When her good-for-nothing mother dies, Amber decides to take her sister and join a colonization project jumping on the first Earth’s first colony-ship. Turns out the ship ends up crashing on an unknown planet in which lives Meoraq, the male lead.
But... Meoraq is a lizardman. Yeah, a lizardman with scales, snout and everything, "The Sword of Sheul" is a status in the lizardmen's high society. After the death of his father, this holy warrior will start his pilgrimage which will lead him to the human survivors.
And well, shit happens, buuuut I'm not gonna walk into details, instead, I'm gonna tell you what you should expect.
The character development and building are by far some of the best I've ever had the pleasure to read.
Meoraq swung around and raked his eyes over the whole of them. “Who dares order me to silence?” “I do,” said Amber. “Shut up.”
Amber is a hot-tempered woman with an indomitable spirit and a pottymouth that pushes her way through a misogynist society and tries to do the better thing in her own way.
Also, she's fat. Why am I pinpointing this? Cause I haven't seen many erotic/romance books which has a fat protagonist and also, because she's a clear reflection of what society, in general, think about strong women.
Amber is not precisely a charming one. She's impulsive, intelligent, brave, and the most coherent character in the whole book; the problem is that she's not the prettiest one in the coop, neither pleasant nor stupid and definitely not willing to keep up with the bullshit of the jerks that surround her. A competent woman who has to fight for the recognition she deserves.
“It is a wife’s duty and pleasure to lessen her husband’s burdens.”
“Prophet Lashraq, as written in Sheul’s true Word.”
“You mean a man wrote it.”
She's a survivor, cause even though she has no friends or people who support her, just a greedy, petty sister who's totally useless, she will be as stubborn as her sharp tongue allows her to drive the human survivors towards the best path.
Even though she's hated, despised and abused by that group of humans, she will never stop trying to make herself heard. And before such fierce conviction, you'll end up rooting for her and feeling as yours every failure she experiences.
Life kicks her ass constantly, but what I deeply love about her is that she tries. She tries so, so hard that you can't help but wish her success.
“Jesus Christ, really? How did you ever survive living with me as long as you did without having sex every other hour?”
“With God’s aid alone,” he said seriously. “It was a terrible time.”
Meoraq is a lizardman. Yes, I don't care, he's awesome, brave and mainly and you will love him. He starts this pilgrimage of his to find himself and find the woman Sheul (the lizardmen's god) is going to give him.
His society is patriarchal and narrow-minded, the only place for women is in submission to religion and men and Amber will be an inflexive point in which Meoraq will have to question his own beliefs and traditions.
Due to his holy warrior occupation, he's deeply influenced by religion, and the way the writer intertwines love, religion, change and betrayal of the old ways is just exquisite.
“You can make a story mean anything Meoraq. But that's the thing with you religious people, isn't it? God is this glorious intangibility, so no proof becomes proof just by how you spin it.”
The beautiful parallels between these two characters are that while Amber is fighting a battle against the world, Meoraq is fighting a battle against himself. He's constantly defying his beliefs, his traditions and everything he once thought to be true. And that's a very difficult thing to deal with when faith in God is in between.
“It's one slice of shit-cake after another with me, isn't it? Why did you marry me?"
"God gave you to me."
"Did you keep the receipt?"
The romance is a slow burn. I could talk to you about the smut, the fact that Meoraq likes it rough or that Amber sucks dicks amazingly, but this is not really the point. There's NSFW stuff, but this book is not erotica.
This book it's Amber's story, Meoraq's story and Amber&Meoraq's story. They are individuals with different issues to deal with, who cross path with each other. Neither of them gives up to their own life to focus on the other's problems and I think that this is a very important thing, cause I've seen many times in romantic books how they turn the love into abandonment of their own lives.
I must say that this book is not for everyone. The TW are: non-con, graphic violence descriptions, sexual harrasment, slavery, kidnapping and psycological abuse.
Although if you're into this kind of stuff, controversial topics and dark literature, this might be your book. I can assure that The Last Hour of Gann is one of my favourite books, and I almost cried when I finished the last chapter and I saw that that's were it was finishing.
TLHG is a love story, a war anecdote and a survival's trip.
