Wen Spencer

A very poor showing in an otherwise fantastic series, this is less a novel, and more a collection of drabbles, short-stories and novellas.
Lacking any discernable plot and without a coherent storyline, it would have been much better of as another Project Elfhome book, filling in the cracks and humanizing the city.
Based on this, I am not sure the author even knows how to progress or end the series, so instead she is fiddling her thumbs, trying to shoehorn every character and story arch into the main plotline.
I adore most of the characters, and welcome a chance to learn more of them, but this haphazard drive-by inclusion does not serve them or the story.… (meer)

A Brother’s Price
by Wen Spencer
316 pages
In this book the roles between male and female are reversed. Women rule the world and men are chattel, without rights, used as breeders, care giver for the children he sires, and homemaker. The cover shows the moment that changes the course of a family's life. A very young girl defends a strange woman in uniform, the girl runs back to the farmhouse to let her younger sisters know what has occurred. Her big brother helps bring the unconscious back to the house, they don't know that she is a princess.… (meer)

In a world where women dramatically outnumber men, Jerin Whistler spends his time cooking meals, tending his younger siblings, and hoping that his sisters will marry him off to a suitable family. But things begin to change after the Whistlers stumble upon a treasonous conspiracy and Jerin falls in love with five princesses.

A Brother's Price juggles plenty of genres -- science fiction, Regency romance, Westerns -- but cheerfully sticks to the lowest cliches. The shotguns and gunboats are flashy but inconsistent; the romance is entirely predictable; the SF themes are completely pasted on. The reversed gender roles have dramatic effect but no logic. In the end, your enjoyment of A Brother's Price will hinge on how amused you are to read the hero described as looking "adorable in his plum silk tunic and flowing trousers."… (meer)