Title: The Virgin Hunt Games, Volume 3
Author: Mel Teshco
Published: March 2021
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Readership: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi Erotica
Rating: ★★★
Content Warnings: Graphic sex, dubious consent, violence, animal abuse
I received a copy of The Virgin Hunt Games, Volume 3 from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
EARTH, YEAR 2332
Life isn’t fair. Just ask Violet who mysteriously arrived in a space capsule at an orphanage as a baby. She has one goal—to find her biological parents, and winning the Virgin Hunt Games will ensure her face is plastered on every screener across the universe. Surely, her family will recognize and come for her? If she can only stay away from her Mate, the one man she must elude at all cost to win. But naturally, he’s also the only one she wants to surrender to.
Prince Zel Oscar is used to getting what he wants. But accepting a rival’s dare to be a Hunter in the infamous sexploitative Virgin Hunt Games was a terrible and possibly life-altering mistake. But then he meets his Hunted, Violet…delicious perfection wrapped up in a gorgeous package. Too bad she is totally indifferent to his kisses, his exploits, and his lofty title. He’ll do whatever it takes to break down her steely resistance…but will his subjects see him as a hero, or a total degenerate for having kinky sex in front of billions of viewers?
In the end he must make an impossible choice—keep her love, or his kingdom?
Every now and then I’m in the mood for an over-the-top bonkers sci-fi romance book and The Virgin Hunt Games, Volume 3 reads very much like The Hunger Games meets the Olympics meets Big Brother.
There were some really great elements to the story – it’s fast-paced and engaging. As a reader, we’re not left with a lot of time to question much about this future Earth where sex-sports are televised live and feature humans and alien races alike. Contestants are trapped inside a specially designed building, with males hunting down their chosen ‘mates’ with specific rules on how to earn points. Teshco really leaned into some cool ideas with the ways the contestants were challenged – an indoor volcano! – as well as a mix of alien and human technology.
On the flip side of that, there were some elements that I could have lived with out, like a group of wild/hungry dogs (who’ve clearly been mistreated) being dropped into the competition to attack the contestants.
Violet is our “human” heroine who’s not like other girls – she’s got purple skin and has been searching her whole life to find her birth parents and she believes that being in a live-televised event like The Virgin Hunt Games will get her enough publicity exposure that they’ll see her and come forward. She’s very unsure of herself and her self-doubt is something that hinders her in the competition. Her mate (and the one person she needs to avoid) is Prince Zel who ended up in the games on a dare and is intrigued by the woman he’s supposed to be chasing.
Being a relatively short, erotic sci-fi romance novel things get heated pretty quickly, and there are plenty of steamy scenes, but there’s enough action happening in between to move the story forward. Overall it was an enjoyable read.
Noveltea Corner 