September Reads (and yeah… how did this happen?)

This was a good reading month! I ended up reading 14 books and 9 novellas, and that’s mostly because I fell into a big trap…

Now, a few years ago, I remember a friend at work telling me about a great smut series to speed read through, and how addicting those books were. I took one look at the cover of the first one and said “yeah… no thank you”. Four years later, and it happened. After reading the ACOTAR series I needed some smut, something fast paced, romantic, with a lot of action. TikTok seemed to think so too, so I kept seeing videos with Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon on it. The first book was available on Scribd, and yeah, 12 books later and 9 novellas and I CANNOT STOP!

I don’t understand what it is… are the books brilliant? Nope. Is the world building fantastic? Meh. Is the romance super good? Depends on the books, but in general, average. Does it have a trope I absolutely hate? Yes it does. Am I still consuming them like they’re Ferrero Rocher’s? YYYYYEEEEEESSSSS!

You can find the info on the series here. I will drop a few spoilers for the whole series and below just a very quick thoughts on the books.

As an overall, all the books have this in common: human girls land on an Ice Planet, the planet has one humanoid tribe, the Sa-Khui, full of males, and only 4 females, girls need to assimilate a parasite to be able to survive on the planet, and this parasite has the function of making them healthy, and species propagation. So the cootie decides who is mate with whom, and from that point on the goal is: have sex until there’s a baby. Yeah, so, I’m not crazy at all about the whole breeding trope. The Sa-Khui males, from the moment they resonate, have one purpose only: make their mates happy, and I think all of them say the following in their books: “I’m the luckiest of males” :D. There are also ridges, everywhere… and a spur, which you only learn what is for on book 11… The writing is a bit repetitive to be honest, but also, I didn’t even care.

Ice Planet Barbarians (IPB #1): Vektal and Georgie story and major worldbuilding. Everything happens TOO fast, but somehow, very satisfying. I wasn’t a huge fan of the whole sex thing even prior to them speaking the same language, but again, this book was SPICY! – 3.5 / 5 Stars

Ice Planet Honeymoon: Vektal and Georgie (IPB #1.5): Cute short story, heavy on the emotion and cementing the bond between the couple – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian Alien (IPB #2): Raahosh & Liz book. Probably my favourite girl in all the series. Liz is a badass, and Raahosh is just as great. These two had great banter, and while I don’t condone how it started, I really liked how the story progressed and the connection these 2 had. – 4.0 / 5 Stars

Ice Planet Honeymoon: Raahosh & Liz (IPB #2.5): Short and unnecessary. But again, great couple. Raahosh has issues 😀 – 3.5 / 5 Stars

Barbarian Lover (IPB #3): I really liked Aehako & Kira. Kira was a bit negative at times, but had plenty of reason. Aehako was super funny. I liked the free will (to a degree), and that this one had a bit more plot. – 4.0 / 5 Stars

Ice Planet Honeymoon: Aehako & Kira (IPB #3.5): Funny and sweet!!!! – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian Mine (IPB #4): Rukh & Harlow’s story. This one is completely different, but Rukh gave me some Raahosh vibes (rightly so). The fact that most of the book is away from everyone else, allowed for a deeper connection between the couple. Good development, but a bit slow, and while I love Harlow, especially in books to come, she was too “go with the flow” in some parts here… – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Ice Planet Honeymoon: Rukh & Harlow (IPB #4.5): different than the other novella, as it takes place DURING the previous book. Sweet! – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Ice Planet Holiday (IPB #5): Long novella about holiday celebrations, a glimpse at past couples and some babies, and a new couple, Claire and Ereven. Could have done with a little less Georgie, she was not a happy camper. – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Prize (IPB #6): Tiffanny and Salukh’s story. Not my favourite, but I liked Salukh, thought the whole “she’s mine, she just doesn’t know it yet” and “let me pretend I’m only her friend” got a bit old. But the guy was sweet and he did his best. Somehow, I think from this book onwards the series changes a lot. I mean, it’s still smutty alien romance, but this was a slow burn, and from this point onwards, the sexy times get less and less, and while I do enjoy the character development, I really really liked the high amount of smut… – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Mate (IPB #7): Finally we get to Josie and Haeden!!! And this I was expecting to be a enemies to lovers romance, and though it was to some degree, I needed the following: Haeden to give a bit more fight (he went from “I hate you” to “You’re my heart” way too fast!), and for Josie to be a little less selfish for the first half of the book. Seriously, the second part for me was easily a 4.5, but the start, it was slow and painful and I just wanted to slap Josie for how much she was hurting her mate. – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Having the Barbarian’s Baby (IPB #7.1): It took me ages to pass the mid part of this book because Megan was so annoying… not worth it. – 2.0 / 5 Stars

Ice Ice Babies (IPB #7.2): Nora struggling to take care of her babies and reconnect with her baby daddy (that is scared out of his mind about his family). Sweet, but they needed to communicate more. What ruins this book for me in hindsight, is the inconsistencies it has regarding some following books. – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Touch (IPB #8): Super slow burn between Rokan and a new member of the human family in Non-Hoth, Lila. Look, I understand that they had some communication barriers between them, but so did Vektal and Georgie, and the first time they see each other, sexy stuff happens. Rokan and Lila wait until the end of the book. They’re sweet, super strong development, I like that Lila wants to be independent and learn, finally, but yeah, no… – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Calm (IPB #8.5): Ended up reading this one after book 9, so the Calm before the storm was ruined for me 😀 – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Taming (IPB #9): I went into this one scared… Maddie was not nice on the previous book, and Hassan had tried to kidnap her sister to force resonance, so yeah, I was a bit scared. But WTF, this was fantastic! Good banter, great communication, Maddie learning how to be independent. In this series, assholes make the best characters! Super worth it, and at a moment I was in a rut with the slowness of the past books, this one picked it up again. Awesome. – 4.0 / 5 Stars

Aftershocks (IPB #9.5): This was an emotional read. No happy scenes here, just a few fav characters trying to deal with a world altering event… – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Heart (IPB #10): Stacy and Pashov get a second change romance… this is a bit sad, because for most of the book is Stacy dealing with the loss of her mate, while trying to take care of her child and moving, while Pashov is trying to understand the gaps in his memory and how his mate fits into his life. I was not crazy about these 2, but the story was sweet, and I likes how they learned that they were still enough and still loved each other. – 3.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Hope (IPB #11): This book changes completely the perspective of this series so far. This is a second chance romance for mated couple Asha and Hemalo – both Sa-Khui (no humans allowed on this coupling). I loved their story, how the events of losing their first child broke them as a couple, both misunderstanding what the other want needed or wanted. But they grow a lot and they communicate! I like Claire, but I did not think her POV was essential for this story. I think it was an attempt for us readers to connect, as neither of the main characters had any Earthly connections, but it just distracted a lot of the times. I loved her friendship with Asha though, and remember how in 7.2 I said there were a lot of inconsistencies with later books… this is mostly related to Asha. Timelines don’t match, Nora befriended her on 7.2 and then didn’t continue to get to know her? Weren’t Asha and Maylak cousins on 7.2? Now they were only ever enemies? This bugged me. But the story… I loved it! ❤ – 4.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Choice (IPB #12): Another fully blue couple! By now we’ve known Farli for years and watched her grow, and now she gets her mate on a foreigner Mardok. This book answers SOME questions related to the origin of the Sa-Khui, and gets them in contact with a very advanced civilization again. This was fun. This book was super sweet and funny, and I was a bit worried until the last chapter, but I was happy they made the right choices. Slow burn on the sexy times… – 4.0 / 5 Stars

Barbarian’s Redemption (IPB #13): Once again, the hero of this book is an asshole on previous books, and for part of this one as well… Bek. In a nutshell, he manages to “buy” 5 human slaves, with the intent that they would resonate to the last 5 single members of his tribe. and it takes him a LONG time understanding what is wrong in this scenario. Ellie has been a slave for half of her life, so it takes awhile for her to come out of her shell. We end up getting a lot of character growth and a super sweet relationship. This one I enjoyed a lot, though of course, has issues. – 3.5 / 5 Stars

Now, I did end up finishing a couple more books during the month that were not blue alien p**n, eheh. First I read Sapiens, A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari. My boss decided to form a book club at work, and sent his team a copy of this one to start with. I ended up listening to it instead of getting to the physical copy, but this brought me back. When I was younger these were the types of books I strived for, and it was such an informative read, and gives a great integration of a series of historical/prehistorical events into how they play into current society. Loved it! This one was a hit for me, but as the “book club” does not have a defined theme yet, I’m a bit scared of what the next book will be about :D.

Finally I went back to one of my favs. With the The Legacy by Elle Kennedy coming out this month, I decided I wanted to reread the Off-Campus series prior to reading the nee book, so I was able to finish The Deal.

Garrett and Hannah’s story still made me smile like crazy on this 3rd time reading this one. ❤ I’m now re-reading The Mistake, and I plan to finish the full series within the next few days. I also still have pending the last book from Briar U, so I might get to it as well.

So, now you tell me. Have you read any of these books? If you also fell into the IPB world, pls let me know :D.