The Ballast’s Bride Audiobook By Sara Ivy Hill cover art

The Ballast’s Bride

Salt Planet Giants, Book 2

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The Ballast’s Bride

By: Sara Ivy Hill
Narrated by: Soren Gray
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He'll cross oceans for her . . .

Skarr giant Hinrivik has been in love with the human he guards for years. But when her marriage is arranged—and he's assigned to deliver her to her groom across the sea—he loses hope that she'll ever return his feelings.

When they arrive at their destination, she'll step off the ship into her new life as someone else's wife. Can Hinrivik convince her to consider him, a wildly mismatched monster, as her mate? He'll have to do it before they reach the other shore . . . because breaking her marriage contract could easily start a war.

The Ballast's Bride is a sweet and steamy size-difference alien romance about a gentle giant bodyguard and the tiny human woman who ignites his instincts.

Contains mature themes.

©2023 Sara Ivy Hill (P)2023 Tantor Science Fiction Fiction Marriage Romance

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The Mountain’s Mate By: Sara Ivy Hill
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That was actually so sweet and smutty and inventive! I was wondering how that hurdle could be solved XD Good one. There are gaping plot holes but I don't care. It was too cute. But also spicy.
And yet mostly so sweet

A spicy wild one with much sweetness

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And I love how the human narrator brought it to life all over again. I love Mimma and Patrek.

Such a sweet story

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The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙❤️💚
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 🙃🙁😀
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Solo Narration

The heroine: Mimma - she is a Nightborn daughter. He parents had wings and drank blood to survive. Though Mimma was a human. She couldn’t take the blood that her parents drank, and when with them, she drank blood colored wine and didn’t eat in front of them. Her parents think an uprising might be brewing and they fear that if their estate was breached, their secret would be discovered, and they could be jailed for purchasing a human and raising her as their own. Her mother wanted her to be a true wife, not just a blood wife, used to feed from. They arranged her marriage to a tribal king across the sea who is treaty bound to take a human wife.

The Hero: Hinrivik - He is a Skarr Giant that works for the estate of Mimma’s parents. He thought of her often and knew he had feelings for the young woman. He often imagined giving her gifts before she fell asleep in his lap. He sometimes felt like a traitor to his kind for having these thoughts about a human, given what humans had done to his kind. Humans often screamed and ran when they saw a Skarr Giant. Hinrivik couldn’t stop picturing Mimma in intimate situations, he wanted her so badly. Skarr Giants were dying out, with Nightborn and Humans taking over much of their territory most of the females had died out. Hinrivik had recently found out that one of his friends had mated a human, though he didn’t know exactly how, he now knew it could be done.

The Story: One day he came across Mimma in the garden, she was crying, and he asked her what was wrong. She told him of the marriage that her parents had arranged for her. He wanted to help but she knew he couldn’t help her with this problem. Mimma knew when she left, even if she ended up loving her new husband, she would have a “Giant sized hole in her heart”. She tells Hinri that she will be leaving in two days to take a ship across the sultan sea where she was getting married and that she wouldn’t be coming back.

When it came time for Mimma to leave for the boat, a human came to be her escort, but Mimma was afraid of the human. Hinri went along to assuage her fears, but when it came time to leave on the boat and the crew was crass with her, Hinri told Mimma if she wanted, he would take her away, but she couldn’t do that to her parents or Hinrivik, so she said no, but he decided to come along to protect her. He hired on to load and unload cargo so the captain wouldn’t have to pay dockworkers. She definitely felt better with him along.

The author crafted a rich world with distinct dynamics—Nightborn, humans, and the dwindling Skarr Giants—and a tense, emotionally layered conflict. Mimma’s struggle between loyalty and self-preservation is heartbreaking, and Hinrivik’s quiet yearning makes him instantly sympathetic.

The moment where he offers to take her away was pivotal—she was tempted, for a moment, before refusing. That choice carried weight, especially given the looming uncertainties of her arranged marriage. And Hinri joining her voyage? That had all the makings of a slow-burn tension where his presence is a quiet comfort, yet an unspoken question lingers: *What if?*

Like the first book in this series, there were some steamy scenes in which the main characters had to get more inventive than the standard couple, given the size difference and the fact that their parts couldn’t fit together for them to be intimate in the way normal couples that are sexually compatible can be. Though in this day and age we certainly know that two people without interlocking parts can have fulfilling relationships.

This audiobook was narrated from multiple perspectives, done in solo narration by Soren Gray. He has a decent voice and is good at using different voices for different characters. He is also very expressive in his narration. I don’t like solo narration, but he did a fine job. Overall, the book was good, and like the first in this series it was different than what we usually get. I liked the fact that it wasn’t insta-love like the first book, these two were friends long before the events in this book. I just wish the size difference was more like he was twice her size not like she was as big as a barbie doll is to a human. It just seemed too much of a difference to me.

The rock hard giant!

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