Judith’s review of Staking His Claim by Lynda Chance
Twenty-one-year-old Elaina Ruiz has only just begun college when she meets Raul Vega for the first time. Recognizing his ruthless intensity for what it is, she doesn’t correct him when he assumes she is an eighteen-year-old freshman.
Raul Vega has never met a woman he couldn’t do without. Until he meets Elaina Ruiz and knows she has to belong to him–even if it means waiting for her to grow up.
People enter into relationships for a variety of reasons, and it is a part of the Western mystique that the rough and tough cowboy is a kind of love-em-and-leave-em rather than enter into any kind of relationship. Add in the fact that most of these Western cowboy types, at least in romance fiction, are alpha males who stake their claim on their women and that’s the end of the discussion most of the time. Now up the ante with the cultural norms of the Hispanic machismo and the intensity between lovers changes, especially when a man worries that the woman of his choice will be snatched away from him as he waits for her to “grow up.” The problem in this story is that Elena was already grown up and yet she chose not to share that information with Raul right away.
Now some readers really don’t like stories about very dominant males and the fact that Raul begins the intimate language so early in his acquaintance with Elena bothers those readers. I took it another way. I think that Raul was a man who was definitely a man who had successfully walked away from just about every woman he had ever fancied except Elena. She broke through his defenses and he made a determination that she was “the one.” In his mind she was already his. That kind of relational projection, in spite of the realities, can often bring on a terminal case of endearments that, on the surface of it, may seem inappropriate. From Raul’s perspective, it was just what it was–him staking his claim.
This is not a very long read but it is definitely erotic and intense. Ms Chance writes stories about over-the-top alpha males, dominance and submission (whether in a formal D/s relationship or not) and a kind of man who finds his woman and the die is cast for all time. So it was with Raul and Elena and it is that kind of focus–not really obsessive but certainly a done deal in Raul’s mind. It is full of hot loving and it the kind of read that fits in to a shorter reading time or a reader’s busy life. I found it curiously engaging–not the kind of relationship I would be comfortable in, but I think it is indicative of a different cultural perspective and for that reason I found it an interesting story.
I give it a rating of 3.75 out of 5
You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.
This novel is self-published by the author and was released in March, 2012. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
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