The blurb for New World: Stay With Me bills it as the story of “a galactic farmer [who] discovers the robot she ordered is actually a flesh-and-blood woman.” Would it surprise you to know that this is actually a Fated Mates vampire romance? It sure as hell surprised me, and not in a good way. 

Cedra has ordered a service bot because the woman who helps do household chores on her farm is in advanced pregnancy. Twyla, daughter of a mega-rich bot designer, escapes a forced engagement by stowing away in the shipping container of the bot Cedra ordered. (Don’t worry; apparently there’s enough living tissue on the bot that it’s shipped at human-safe temperatures, with air pressure and circulation, and apparently at a rapid enough speed that toilets and food and water aren’t a consideration? First strike.) When Twyla arrives at Cedra’s, her deception lasts maybe forty-five seconds, because only a moron would not be able to tell that Twyla is not a service bot. Also Cedra’s a Fanger, which means she has, well, fangs, and she has a keen sense of smell that allows her to detect that Twyla is living. And one time she licks Twyla’s blood after Twyla gets a splinter and WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT?! Twyla is her Blood Mate.  

I legitimately thought this book would be about humanoid robots and AI, but suddenly I’m in a Fated Mates vampire novel? What the hell, Carina Press blurb writers? 

I didn’t hate the story of Twyla and Cedra. It’s nice that Cedra notices how quickly things are progressing and insists the two of them remain distanced, even though it proves to be utterly impossible to undo their…. Blood Mate-hood? Blood Mate-ness? I dunno. Their sex scenes, once they give in, are hot, albeit with the standard ‘when will I let her bite/mark me?’ vampire plot device. On the negative side, Twyla is useless around the farm, and she decides to turn her energy to clothing design instead of something even vaguely useful on a frontier farm world. A character turns up at the end out of nowhere and leaves just as abruptly without anything being resolved. Why? 

If a publisher isn’t even doing the basics of helping a book find its audience, and not alienating people who picked it up thinking it would be something else entirely, they aren’t earning their cut. While the book is just average and squeaks out a C+, this performance by Carina Press is a definite F. 

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