Review of Bred for Love by Revella Hawthorne

by Revella Hawthorne, pen-name for SJ Himes

4 stars

In a world where humans are genetically designed, altered and sold for sexual pleasure and breeding, a young prince of the powerful Cassian Dynasty decides to take a mate and sire heirs. Not wishing to saddle himself with royal and meddlesome in-laws, and a wife he would have no desire to bed, Prince Edward goes to Heritage Breeders, and finds far more than just a warm body to sate his lust and carry on his lineage.

Percy is the result of a master DNA architect designing himself his own personal sex slave and breeder. Yet when his creator and Master dies, leaving Percy alone at the mercy of the callous stable masters and the new owner of Heritage, he fears his future. Afraid he'll be bought by a wretched old man or a deviant monster, Percy is terrified when he is dragged from his cell and presented to the most prestigious client Heritage has ever welcomed...a Cassian Royal.

Prince Edward is immediately infatuated with the shy, nervous and enchantingly beautiful Percy, and claims him for his own. Yet not everyone is pleased by a royal purchasing a breeder, especially one like Percy, and tensions rise both in Heritage and in the palace.

Torn between desire, duty, a king's command and the innermost desires of their hearts, Edward and Percy are set on path that is anything but easy. Can Percy trust Edward with his heart as he does his body? Can Edward keep an angry king and unseen enemies away from the young slave who is steadily stealing his heart?

And what happens when Nature takes its course, and sex leads to more than just pleasure?

At 160 pages, Bred for Love could be a short story, but there is so much going on that it really feels like a full length novel.  We liked this story, but were really fascinated with the world, the fantasy.

Prince Edward is a Cassian Blood Prince, but since he has older brothers who have provided heirs to the throne he find himself not willing to get married to produce an heir, and instead turns to Heritage and procuring a breeder to carry on his line.  While perusing the merchandise at Heritage, Edward meets Percy, unlike other breeders, has been built to have conscience thought and be a companion for his mate, not just to produce a child and be stabled afterward. 

See, sounds like a pretty easy story, but throw in self-lubrication,  breeders just to produce heirs, male pregnancies, sex-slaves and poof, our mind was blown, and actually kept us reading because darn, we were just fascinated. It felt like every page turn brought us to another weird revelation, or another head-scratching tid bit of this fantasy world.

 But, let’s talk the relationship between Edward and Percy.  The idea of a breeder is simple; buy a breeder, mount, repeat until they produce and offspring, they are stabled and then repeat  process when you want another child.  Edward goes to Heritage with this intention, but finds Percy; shy, sweet, beautiful, and Edward wants to take care of him, and they soon find themselves falling in love – ahh, insta-love.  It feels a bit like a shifter story, with the alpha/mate connection. 

We didn’t particularly like Percy, he was meek, subservient, and docile, never meeting anyone’s eyes, but he is essentially a slave, and acts as one should.  And if he cried one more time we might have just hit him! We wish sometimes he would stand up for himself a bit more, or grow a backbone, but again being a breeder put him as a certain level in this society, and we felt that looking through our perspective , we just didn’t understand where he was coming from some times.  The breeder thing made us a bit itchy as well.  Percy self-lubricates (umm, yes) and the sex is very vigorous, descriptive, explicit, and HOT.  But, fair warning, there is a lot lot lot of sex.  So much for such a short read. 

Honestly we couldn’t put this book down, and read the other 2 in the continuing story the next day, there is a flow to the writing, it grabs you and keeps you, folding you in this weird world.  It is easy to read and ends on a satisfactory note that you want to pick up the next books.