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Science Fiction romances tend to battle sequences and spaceships, but Homebound by Lydia Hope is set on a dystopian Earth.
In The City, an urban ruin that reads like a Dickensian slum, Gemma works for a pittance scrubbing prison cells. A surprise reassignment to the third floor, where the alien prisoners are housed, leads to her encounter with Simon in cell 35 – a filth-encrusted, unspeaking, desiccated male on the verge of death. Amidst so much misery, Gemma finds meaning in treating him with dignity, and under her care, he starts to make a recovery. But as Simon gets better, other things, including Gemma’s living situation and working conditions, get worse. This is a book with writing issues carried by plot and character, but one that SF romance fans will find worth a read.
‘Human caregiver for alien experimentation victim’ is its own subgenre of SF romance, but Homebound’s prison setting makes it stand out. Simon was experimented on prior to the story, but he is currently a run-of-the-mill prisoner in a shoddily managed prison, living on a floor with multiple other types of aliens, none of whom instill the same reaction in Gemma as Simon does. The details of prison life are strongly developed. Instead of the standard novel’s locked-down, high-surveillance, security-intensive lab setting, we have a prison with palm recognition locks, tasers, and not much else. It is rife with corruption and harassment, has outbreaks of violence, and is, quite frankly, disgusting. I loved that the main obstacle is ‘How can Simon heal enough to be capable of escape?’ and not ‘What computer hacking and duct-crawling action sequence can we use to get us out of here?’
In an alien romance, there’s always a balance to be struck between ‘alien enough not to be a mere blue human’ and ‘not so alien that it’s squicky’. Simon is definitely not human, but the physical differences aren’t extreme. He has gill-like slits on the side of his nose rather than nostrils, and he has three pupils, but most of his differences are invisible (four hearts) and similar to the toughness of shifter heroes (extreme height and strength or speed). More alien is his behavior, and I never became fully comfortable with his complete indifference to life and killing.
In the world of ‘show vs tell’, this book does a strong job of showing Gemma as someone raised in better circumstances who hasn’t lost the compassion she’d been able to afford in better times, but also not a pushover, especially in work situations. It also effectively shows how and why Simon, an imprisoned alien who has no fondness for any other humans, would feel connected to Gemma. And the author shows why this connection goes beyond gratitude – Gemma and Simon connect on an individual level beyond that of patient/nurse or prisoner/caregiver.
Unfortunately, the ‘telling’ in this book is not as strong. When Gemma tries to put emotions into words, it becomes cheesy, florid, or both. The writing isn’t just stylistically challenged, it also needs a good edit. There are misused words: “dunk” instead of “dank,” “taught” vs “taut,” “Alladin’s treasure cove,” and, most amusingly, a wound oozes “puss”. There are grammatical issues like tense shift and omission of the perfect tense. I was also very put-off when Gemma, looking at an injured Simon, thinks that he is blind and deaf, and
“Such a fate would be worse than death… if he was… then the air of utter hopelessness around him and his willful retreat from the world could be understood and forgiven.”
Disability does not need that kind of commentary. She also, at one point, decides that
“Simon’s bone structure was too clean-cut for someone prone to deviant behavior,”
which is not how deviant behavior works.
Overall, I enjoyed Homebound, and while it’s not something I feel a crushing need to reread, it’s definitely a solid addition to the SF romance canon.
This was recommended to me in the comments thread of a different review. SF romance fans need to look out for each other, so if you have other ones you like, please comment below!
Buy it at: Amazon
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Grade: B+
Book Type: Science Fiction Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 07/08/21
Publication Date: 02/2020
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.
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Hi Caroline
I am happy to have come across your review of Homebound. I read your review and most of the responses and thought you might offer some insight into a question I’ve been mulling over.
I am only 24% into this book, and I’ve enjoyed it for the most part. However, I have come across a few issues that have made me uneasy. So far, the migrants in the story have been castigated and blamed almost entirely for the unrest happening in the city where Gemma lives. Her relatives sound almost identical to some of the loudest anti-immigrant voices we hear today. Although Gemma herself admits that she too is an immigrant, so far, I have not seen where her character has wrestled internally with those comments. I know she’s limited to what she can say to her family, and I wouldn’t expect her to challenge them openly, but she doesn’t seem to show internal struggle regarding those comments.
There were a couple of additional things that came up that have given me pause as I read Homebound. While I don’t know Ms. Hope’s stance on immigration or any of the other similarly polarizing issues, I am wary of supporting writers or anyone else who supports those who pushes laws that seek to limit and diminish the rights of certain groups in our society. I am enjoying the novel but I am struggling with this issue. Obviously she is free to write any way she chooses, but when it’s feasible, I try to be conscious about who and what I support. In the world in which we live, it’s nearly impossible not to inadvertently support some cause that goes against our beliefs.
I understand this is a matter of personal choice, but I’d be most grateful to hear your thoughts on this. Some may consider this rather trite or even contributing to divisions in our country, but I wrestle with this. Have you ever had this experience before? How do you manage? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Caroline, I’m so sorry! I think I’m the one who recommended this on the other review and I wouldn’t have, if I remembered or was aware of the ableist & classist one-liners. I read this in 2019, when I was going through a major depressive episode. My only metric for books at the time was, “Am I interested enough to keep reading?” and “Is this capable of engaging me, despite how unwell I feel?” and Homebound succeeded in those ways, which I’m still immensely grateful for. I think of this book with a lot of fondness because it transported me when I needed that transportation more than usual and found it harder to be transported, but I know I wasn’t reading as critically as I am now. I also appreciate that you’ve included those uninterrogated or problematic sections of the book in your review, so people know that it is a part of text.
I’m glad you recommended it! It had a lot of redeeming features, and it started a conversation about the things that went wrong.
I enjoyed this book and had a different overall take on it than yourself. I was very surprised that you chose to highlight that one sentence regarding Simon. As I say below, I don’t recall it’s place so I can’t say specifically what it refers to but I assume it’s when Simon is desiccated and everyone thinks he’s a rotting shell left to expire in a dark cell no one visits or cleans.
I felt one overall theme of the book was a criticism of how anyone less than physically “perfect” as well as anyone different was punished and victimized in that world. Lydia’s injury and limp seemingly cost her not only her former vocation and life, but her first love.
Her uncle’s injury means he is suddenly the victim as he isn’t the “able bodied” bully he was and must basically grovel and pay dearly for medical treatment. If he doesn’t then he will become the outcast, unemployed kind of person he despises.
Lydia is almost killed in the most horrible way because she is seen as prey by the most violent people living on the streets. Lydia uses her resources to help a friend’s daughter whose health problems are not accommodated on this planet and continually reduce the status of both the friend and daughter.
Simon and his propensity to use violence and prey on “bad” people without remorse I thought was one of the most interesting aspects of this book. He can very much be seen as a morally “grey” character. He is completely a warrior and his only emotional connection is with Lydia. He is in direct contrast to Lydia who thinks everyone’s life is valuable. She seems to be one of the only people on the planet who doesn’t subscribe to the harsh Darwinian “survival of the fittest” mentality on the planet.
This is definitely true, and probably why that line was so weirdly jarring to me. It undermines and contradicts the rest of the message. I definitely think an editor could have helped and caught this.
I do think, though, that one thing we should take away from the Vivians debacle is that all of us reviewers need to put on our best empathy hat when we read. If I were, or knew someone, deaf-blind and was experiencing this story, it wouldn’t matter to me that the story condemned capitalism writing off people with limb injuries if it also said that my reality, or the experience of my loved one, was so awful it wasn’t worth staying alive for.
I was very tempted until the remarks on disability. I appreciate that you included them in your review. The book may be worth reading, but the author obvious ableism is off-putting for me. I’m pretty sure she didn’t “mean it” that way, but I hope she’s able to educate herself and do better in the future.
Carrie, I read this and while I don’t remember that one line in the book, when the heroine finds Simon he is not just deaf and blind, he’s catatonic- he hasn’t been fed for months and no one knows if he’s even capable of coming back to any kind of life as his body has basically mummified. He has no way of communicating either through speech or movement even if he could move, as the heroine and he don’t share the same language and he’s been condemned to a prison where the other workers were content to leave him to slowly starve to death and basically rot.
Even though she finds him like that and he’s a completely different alien she never has seen before she literally uses her fingers to push food into his mouth for days then gives up her meager lunch to try to feed him yogurt for protein when she is half starving as well.
The heroine also suffers from a physical disability and is mistreated because of it and later uses her resources later to help someone who has another physical problem get a better situation.
I don’t think it’s really fair or accurate to say the author has a problem with ableism. As I said I don’t recall the exact statement quoted and don’t own the book to check right now but it may well have been said in reference to his entire situation.
Yes, I would say that’s just a dumb line that should have been cut, but it’s not reflective of the book as a whole. I did include it though because I think “it was just a dumb line” is one of the most common excuses for something ableist, racist, etc and we need to get better at not saying them in the first place or letting them slide.
I would argue it was taken out of context rather than just being a dumb line or something that reflects the author’s point of view of disabilities.
It comes at a point where the heroine discovers Simon has been imprisoned for three years and has never been cleaned by anyone who works there. People rarely even try to feed him and Gemma is trying to figure out how and why it happened. Why hasn’t be asked for food or help when other prisoners yell and complain all the time? She speculates that he could be of a race that doesn’t even have vocal cords to communicate. Then after cleaning his cell, and bringing him food she thinks he may well be blind and deaf in addition to other things.
Her thinking him being blind and deaf and unable to communicate in a place where he is starved and mistreated with no means to communicate or advocate for himself really does sound like a fate worse than death. Not that being blind and deaf itself is, but to be abandoned in a system that horribly mistreats you and leaves you filthy and to gradually (and tortuously) starve to death with no one to appeal to and no means to ask anyone for help makes Gemma finally understand why Simon might have just given up.
To me that’s wildly different than the author saying that blind and deaf people should give up and it’s the exact opposite of what the heroine says and does. She cleans him and feeds him thinking he is blind, deaf and unable to communicate and promises to come back the next day.
Thanks for the further explanation, chrisreader. It makes sense in context.
Indeed, Chrisreader. It’s like the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.”
Moreover, what is with this current cultural obsession of analyzing every single offhanded remark a fictional character makes or thinks? And, even worse, vilifying the author or making assumptions about her intent and real-life beliefs for writing a three dimensional protagonist who isn’t 100% PC? Aren’t protagonists allowed to be a bit hypocritical, imperfect, thoughtless, or troubling anymore? Frankly, that’s what makes them interesting. And why should readers feel ashamed or apologetic for enjoying them? As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t.
I won’t clog up this thread as I’ve said my peace. I just wanted to stop by to voice my agreement with your comments. If anyone would like to continue this discussion, I have opened up a thread on the Agora called “Tired of excessive apologies in romance.”
Here is the full context. You can decide if you think it improves anything.
“Gemma kept talking, but she had no idea if he understood her language. She had discovered, to her surprise, that many aliens didn’t speak it, with some possessing vocal cords unsuited to making the right sounds. Maybe he was one of those. Or maybe – the horrible thought lodged itself in her head – he was deaf. Blind and deaf. Such a fate would be worse than death. But if he was, indeed, both, then the air of utter hopelessness around him and his willful retreat from the world could be understood and forgiven.”
It is possible that the author meant “blind and deaf AND IN PRISON would be a fate worse than death,” but that isn’t what the text actually says.
Nan, if you are tired of what you consider to be “excessive apologies,” then you should plan to skip my reviews,