Lots of mpreg but not many kids in the tale, so fun kinkiness full speed ahead!

Do not read unless your looking for something that will make you bawl your eyes out and curse the author.

Waffling between 3-4 stars out of 5.

This book felt extremely emotional and fully drew me in. Mark and Dale had a beautiful relationship that I completely believed. However.

There are so many things about this one that I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Don't misunderstand, I have no problem with the kink or D/s vibes. My problem is the whole "pet" thing. The dynamic shifted weirdly between D/s master-slave sort of thing, and an actual family pet dog. I fully noped out when the author included a note at the end about the book being a tribute to her family pets. If you extrapolate to the story, it becomes about these aliens fucking and breeding their pet dogs. That being said, I think if you ignore the last couple chapters of the book, you can blissfully ignore the weird dog dynamic and enjoy a more D/s vibe instead.

Continuing on with the weird vibes. Why insist that three of the four human characters are actually straight? Obviously they have no problem with m/m sex and romance, as each of them fall in love with several other men.

Spoiler

They even have a chance to leave this situation, but all choose to stay with the men they love. I completely understand and agree with their choice, but why still insist that they're actually straight men who just chose to enjoy the pleasure they've been provided with?

Is this some sort of "turning straight men gay" kink that the author has? I guess I kinda get it, but also sexuality is such a personal and imperative thing. What if you were an earnestly gay or straight person, but someone insisted that you have sex with and fall in love with someone opposite your preference. You would feel uncomfortable, wouldn't you? This is your world, author. Just make everybody bisexual!!

All in all, this book was very enjoyable, with some pretty awesome steam. However, I had to keep performing Olympic-level mental gymnastics to work around some of the squicky vibes. And I haven't even gotten into some of the plot issues. Proceed with caution.

Very strange. Yet it made me cry. It made more sense to me seeing the author's note at the end.

Grief is a bitch, regardless of where it comes from. I'm sorry for your loss Tymber Dalton.

Looking for a tearjerker? You found one.

I mean it, though. The book was wonderful, the characters were very engaging, and welcoming. The plot was not a normal one, but actually built with the main character.
There was no centralized bad guy, and let me tell you, if your not crying by the end of this book, you have not read it correctly.
Warning you now though, if you are not prepared to be up all night crying, don't read it. It's a very soft, yet touching book, and very heartwarming, yet gutwrenching at the same time.
I admittedly could ran about this book for days, so just read it. Cry. Laugh. Cry again. Question life. You know the deal.

You can read my review of “Acquainted with the Night” at my web site.

This was a book I was actually reluctant to start reading. Tymber Dalton is a hit or miss kind of author for me. I either love or hate her work. Well this book truly was on the love side of things. I didn't want to put it down; resented the kids for expecting me to cook dinner... lol! When the tears started, everyone was asleep thankfully, so they couldn't make fun of me. And I don't cry easily over a story!

But these characters really got to me. They have been written with a beautiful touch. They all have their flaws, none are too perfect to be true. The relationships between them all is varied and not textbook standard or carbon copied.

Tymber Dalton invites us into this wonderful, exciting and alien world and makes us at home there. She takes us on a journey of love, growth and adaptation to all things strange and beautiful. I won't tell you that the story is without it's flaws; the use of the term "milker" was a bit jarring to be honest, but not enough to put me off. But the ending was perfect for this tale.

I was left satisfied, completely! It's definitely a story I will be revisiting in the future.

3.5 stars This book was MPreg done right in a technical sense. These were normal human guys and in the context of the alien biology and physiology, the preg was very well done. And it is a book about love and relationships, more than anything else, with an imaginative Sci Fi context. Human men, captured from the Terran military, find a home, love and sexual bliss (non-stop, pretty much) with each other and their alien Master.

The mechanics of control and stimulation of the human males were a bit far-fetched, but possible. There are experiments where scientists stick an electrode into the pleasure center of a rat's brain and the rat will bar-press for electrical stimulation, without stopping for food or sleep. This book seemed to use the male prostate as a similar conduit to behavior control and bliss.

I did have a little bit of trouble with the lack of negative emotional reactions of the MC narrator and the other humans to their situations, especially at first. I think normal humans would have had more doubts, more fears, jealousies, arguments... and less bliss. All of the conflicts within this story came from outside the romantic pairings (and trio-ings and quad-ings...) in the form of danger, assault etc. The human military and society were portrayed pretty negatively, as a partial explanation for the guys' contentment. But the combination of being effectively plugged into brain pleasure centers non-stop plus physiology-altering drugs are required explain it. It could have been an even more interesting story if there had been conflicts within the household. The speed and intensity of the aliens' attachment to their pets also seemed rapid. Having said that, it was a sweet, imaginative, occasionally angsty, read and I did enjoy it.

4.5 stars

Who knew dub-con/non-con could be so fluffy? There were so many things in AWTN that usually make me dislike a book: characters being unrealistically accepting of their situation, instalove, captives being overly eager to please, mushy gushy declarations of love, etc. However, even while noticing them, I still really enjoyed reading it and I can't really explain why those things didn't bother me this time. I must have been too distracted by the milking machines, butt plugs, and alien egg-implantation. I still thought I'd only be dropping one star for a rating of 4. That is, until I got to the latter parts of the book that tugged my heartstrings and nearly brought me to tears. I have to say, I loved the ending, and I totally get the parallel the author made that she explained in her author's note at the end. So given how it left me feeling in the end, I'm giving the book 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.