Genre: fantasy romance

Review: Breath of Fire by Amanda Bouchet + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Breath of Fire by Amanda Bouchet + GiveawayBreath of Fire (Kingmaker Chronicles #2) by Amanda Bouchet
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Kingmaker Chronicles #2
Pages: 448
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on January 3rd 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

SHE'S DESTINED TO DESTROY THE WORLD... "Cat" Catalia Fisa has been running from her destiny since she could crawl. But now, her newfound loved ones are caught between the shadow of Cat's tortured past and the threat of her world-shattering future. So what's a girl to do when she knows it's her fate to be the harbinger of doom? Everything in her power.
BUT NOT IF SHE CAN HELP ITGriffin knows Cat is destined to change the world-for the better. As the realms are descending into all-out war, Cat and Griffin must embrace their fate together. Gods willing, they will emerge side-by-side in the heart of their future kingdom...or not at all.

My Review:

Breath of Fire has a whole lot of quest story, wrapped up in a lovely bit of “plucky rebels vs the evil empire”, complete with extremely evil emperor. Or in this case, empress.

It also manages to provide reasonable (for definition of reasonable that satisfies in-world consistency) of how the Greek pantheon from our own history ended up actively running the show in Thalyria. At least for select definitions of active and running.

And the sheer number of times and ways in which the gods step in to “help” their descendant Catalia Fisa lead the reader to the conclusion that her lover Griffin Sinta has always believed – that their meeting and their relationship were fated by those gods, and that neither of them had a chance at resisting the forces that are pushing them together.

That the gods are so hell-bent on saving Thalyria that they are willing to mess with both Cat’s and Griffin’s lives to make damn sure they happen and it happens puts the forced beginning of their relationship into perspective. Like many readers, I found the transformation of their relationship from kidnapper and captive to lovers to smack of questionable consent at the very least, if not an unhealthy dose of Stockholm Syndrome.

Discovering that they are both pawns of the gods makes the whole thing easier to swallow. So to speak. Not that Cat doesn’t swallow, and other things, fairly often when it comes to her relationship with Griffin.

promise of fire by amanda bouchetBreath of Fire follows directly after A Promise of Fire. Now that Cat and Griffin are firmly on the same side, Cat is all in with Griffin’s plan to sweep out the corrupt Alphas in all the kingdoms and replace them with a rule of law. She just doesn’t think she deserves to live to see it.

Naturally enough, those Alphas want to hang onto their absolute power, and are willing to do anything to keep it. To put a further fly in the sticky ointment, the most powerful of those Alphas is Cat’s mother Andromeda, who will do anything to draw Cat back into her sticky and stinking web.

The story in Breath of Fire becomes Cat and Griffin’s quest for magical items and magical assistance that will allow them to defend Griffin’s kingdom of Sinta while they strike out to bring Tarva and Fisa under their control. It’s not an easy quest, and it is not intended to be. Hope seems lost many, many times along the way, only to be found again either through human ingenuity or the grace of one of Cat’s great-great-great-great-great-uncles. Uncles named Zeus, or Poseidon, or Hades.

She even gets to borrow Cerberus again.

Cat’s destiny has always been as the Harbinger of doom. Doom for the evil system that has held Thalyria in chains for far too long. If only she can get past her mother.

Escape Rating B+: We all have mommy issues. Cat’s are just bigger, and a whole lot deadlier, than most. Andromeda is the bitch to end all bitches. There’s no question she’s evil, but I hope we find out more about why, or how she got this way, in the next book. Or we may find out that Thalyria is simply rotten to the core, and Andromeda’s evil is just one of the more obvious symptoms. The other Alphas weren’t any better than Andromeda, just less powerful.

I don’t know why, but I feel much better about the very questionable consent in Cat and Griffin’s relationship after discovering that the whole thing has an element of deus ex machina. Even though I don’t normally like deus ex machina. But there are so many dei machinating in this story that it works. Also that Cat and Griffin are both pawns feels better than when it looked like only Cat was a pawn.

The quest feels like it has elements of the Odyssey. It certainly is an odyssey. Every step along the way leads to another object that must be found, and which can only be obtained through another trial. It is also an important part of the quest that every member of the team gets tried in their own way, and that Cat and Griffin’s relationship gets tried most of all.

One of the good things about this story is that even though Breath of Fire is the middle book in the trilogy, it doesn’t feel like a middle book. The ending certainly has its climactic moments, but it doesn’t end in a terrible trough. Instead, it ends in hope for the future – albeit a future that suddenly has a deadline attached.

I can’t wait for the conclusion of this series, Heart on Fire. It looks like things are headed for an explosive ending.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Win one of ten copies of A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet, the first book in her The Kingmaker Chronicles series, plus a signed bookplate!

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Review: The Edge of the Blade by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Edge of the Blade by Jeffe KennedyThe Edge of the Blade (The Uncharted Realms #2; The Twelve Kingdoms #5) by Jeffe Kennedy
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Uncharted Realms #2, Twelve Kingdoms #5
Pages: 400
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation on December 27th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A HAWK S PLEDGE "The Twelve Kingdoms rest uneasy under their new High Queen, reeling from civil war and unchecked magics. Few remember that other powers once tested their borders until a troop of foreign warriors emerges with a challenge . . ." Jepp has been the heart of the queen s elite guard, her Hawks, since long before war split her homeland. But the ease and grace that come to her naturally in fighting leathers disappears when battles turn to politics. When a scouting party arrives from far-away Dasnaria, bearing veiled threats and subtle bluffs, Jepp is happy to let her queen puzzle them out while she samples the pleasures of their prince s bed. But the cultural norms allow that a Dasnarian woman may be wife or bed-slave, never her own leader and Jepp s light use of Prince Kral has sparked a diplomatic crisis. Banished from court, she soon becomes the only envoy to Kral s strange and dangerous country, with little to rely on but her wits, her knives and the smolder of anger and attraction that burns between her and him . . .

My Review:

talon of the hawk by jeffe kennedyWhat makes Jeffe Kennedy’s Twelve Kingdoms/Uncharted Realms series so awesome is the way that all of her heroines have incredible amounts of agency, whether they are supposed to or not. And the way that often very nontraditional women manage to make their own way in the world without giving away that agency or resulting in what is considered stereotypical feminine behavior.

Jepp is no exception to those rules. She is a scout, spy, warrior, occasional assassin and general all-around knife-wielding badass. She has lived her life entirely by her own rules, rules which include giving her service to someone she respects, specifically High Queen Ursula of the Thirteen Kingdoms. And Jepp goes where her queen sends her.

Specifically in this case, Jepp has been sent to the Kingdom of Dasnaria as Ambassador. Saying that Jepp is an interesting choice is an extreme understatement. Possibly to the point of extreme sarcasm.

Dasnarians take the belief that a woman’s place is in the house, and only in the house, to its own extreme. Women live in seraglios, separate from men. They have absolutely no rights, no agency, and are believed to have no desires except to please and to serve. And of course this is far, far from so, even in their own kingdom where the men enforce all the rules.

The Thirteen Kingdoms fly in the face of all of those assumptions. Ursula is High Queen, and she rules her kingdoms. She is not the figurehead the Dasnarians assume she must be. She is also not ruled from behind her throne by her consort Harlan, an exile from the Dasnarian royal family.

The Dasnarians believe that Ursula was stupid, or short-sighted, or typically female in some other way, to send a woman as ambassador. Woman are not even SEEN in the Dasnarian court.

But Jepp is no typical ambassador, and Ursula knew exactly what she was doing when she sent her best scout to hide in plain sight, spy out her enemies and possibly even suborn the King of Dasnaria’s brother.

After all, if one woman of the Thirteen Kingdoms can sway a died-in-the-wool men’s rights activist from the error of his ways, why can’t another? And if Jepp can locate her Queen’s worst enemies along the way, so much the better.

Until it very nearly turns out to be so much the worse.

Escape Rating B+: I love Jepp as the heroine. She is incredibly awesome, and also completely unapologetic about who and what she is. And that’s very much her strength.

When Prince Kral arrived in the Thirteen Kingdoms searching for his brother Harlan, Jepp treated him exactly like any other man who grabbed her attention. They had one night of very, very mutually enjoyable sex, and then went their separate ways. Or so Jepp thought.

A big part of this story is Jepp and Kral negotiating a relationship that frustrates both of them in more ways than one, and that neither expected at all. Jepp saw Kral as a merely an excellent one-night stand, with no apologies, no remorse and absolutely no slut-shaming whatsoever. Jepp likes sex, and is not interested in commitments.

Women in Dasnaria do not act that way. Frankly, women in Dasnaria don’t seem to act at all, at least as far as the men can see. Kral has zero experience with a woman who takes her pleasure where she finds it, expects nothing in return, and has absolutely no need or desire for his protection or his financial support or anything else that he thinks women are supposed to want. He thinks their night together means a contract, and that Jepp is now his bed-slave for as long as he wants her to be.

Jepp is a free woman. She tells him so, she shows him so and she demonstrates that it is so. And she is perfectly capable of defending herself, thank you very much. It takes the entire voyage from the Thirteen Kingdoms to Drasnaria, and a rather long voyage it is, for Kral to figure out that Jepp is exactly who and what she claims to be, and that he actually likes a woman who is his equal. Jepp makes him feel, in ways that he was not expecting. More importantly, Jepp makes him think that a whole shipload of his assumptions about women, and possibly other things, have been completely wrong.

pages of the mind by jeffe kennedyJepp did not expect to be the ambassador. That was supposed to be Dafne’s job. But Dafne got caught up in Kral’s machinations in the Kingdom of Nahanau, as related in The Pages of the Mind. So Jepp, who feels that she would have been much more capable of guarding the ambassador than being the ambassador, is now stuck with a job that she does not feel suited for.

And the early parts of the book drag a bit, as Jepp loses some of her agency while stuck on the ship, indulging in a bit of a pity party. Once she, and the story, reach Dasnaria she gets her agency back with a vengeance, not in spite of her perceived shortcomings as an ambassador, but in many ways because of them. She is incapable of being what she is not, which means she is incapable of seeming meek and subservient and what the Dasnarians consider typically female. She sets the court on its ear.

She also shakes up the seraglio, and wins over the women of the court, who wield a much different type of power than the men recognize – but it is power all the same. Watching Jepp demonstrate all the things that a woman can be if she sets her mind to it, and the way that she navigates the court, often by running uphill and against the wind, is awesome.

She even manages to teach Kral that there is much, much more to life than power and the pursuit of it. Especially in a place where the fish has rotted from the head very, very far down.

Review: The Tides of Bara by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Tides of Bara by Jeffe KennedyThe Tides of Bára (Sorcerous Moons, #3) by Jeffe Kennedy
Formats available: ebook
Series: Sorcerous Moons #3
Pages: 200
Published by Brightlynx Publishing on October 29th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Kobo
Goodreads

A Narrow Escape
With her secrets uncovered and her power-mad brother bent on her execution, Princess Oria has no sanctuary left. Her bid to make herself and her new barbarian husband rulers of walled Bára has failed. She and Lonen have no choice but to flee through the leagues of brutal desert between her home and his—certain death for a sorceress, and only a bit slower than the blade.
A Race Against Time
At the mercy of a husband barely more than a stranger, Oria must war with her fears and her desires. Wild desert magic buffets her; her husband’s touch allures and burns. Lonen is pushed to the brink, sure he’s doomed his proud bride and all too aware of the restless, ruthless pursuit that follows…
A Danger Beyond Death…
Can Oria trust a savage warrior, now that her strength has vanished? Can Lonen choose her against the future of his people? Alone together in the wastes, Lonen and Oria must forge a bond based on more than lust and power, or neither will survive the test…

My Review:

orias gambit by jeffe kennedyThe action in The Tides of Bára picks up immediately after the end of Oria’s Gambit. Or perhaps I should say the failure of Oria’s gambit, as they are both the same thing. Unfortunately for Oria and Lonen.

In other words, this is not the place to start Sorcerous Moons. Start at the beginning with the marvelous Lonen’s War. The Sorcerous Moons series isn’t so much as series as it is one long story, broken up into publishable-sized chunks.

They’re short chunks so start at the beginning.

The Tides of Bára is the second half of the middle book in what is so far projected to be a four-book series. The author hasn’t committed trilogy, she’s committed tetralogy. But that tetralogy feels like it is necessary for this story to reach its conclusion.

In Lonen’s War, we saw the set up. We saw the arrogance and corruption of the Bárans first-hand, both through the eyes of neglected Princess Oria and conquering “barbarian” Lonen. Lonen has brought war to Bára, a war that was only begun because the Bárans were stealing water and mass murdering his people using nearly unkillable golems. Lonen brought the war to Bára to make them finally face some risk to their own people.

Oria breaks herself out of a literal ivory tower existence that was supposedly for her own good, but was mostly to benefit those in power. As such things usually are. When the peace she brokered between Lonen and her people is betrayed, Lonen returned to Bára in Oria’s Gambit to punish someone for that betrayal. He thinks that someone was Oria. When he finds out that it wasn’t, Lonen and Oria join forces.

Oria sees a marriage of convenience to Lonen as the only way to re-take power before her corrupt brother manages to seize the throne. The marriage takes place, but in spite of her political maneuvering, her power grab fails and her brother tries to have her killed.

As The Tides of Bára opens, Lonen and Oria are fighting their way out of Bára . While Oria believes that the wild magic of the desert will kill her sooner or later, she has some hope that she can find a way to survive. And she is certain that if Lonen can get out of the city, he will survive to go back to his people. Remaining in the city is guaranteed death for both of them. A sliver of hope of survival is better than none.

But once they are free of the city, after a hair-raising escape, they have a long and dangerous journey ahead of them to reach the Destrye, Lonen’s people, with no guarantee that Oria will survive the journey, or that if she does, she will be capable of helping his people survive. Or even if they will let her.

In spite of the odds against them, they have to try. It is their only hope. But what neither of them expects is that along the way, their marriage of convenience will change into something much, much more.

lonens war by jeffe kennedyEscape Rating B+: The Tides of Bára is a road story. It’s the story of Lonen and Oria’s literal journey from Bára to Destrye, and it is also the story of the journey of their relationship from marriage of convenience to marriage of love. The physical journey has more than its share of very real dangers, but the emotional journey is equally as charged.

They began this story on opposite sides of a battlefield. Out in the desert, Lonen and Oria, with the help of Oria’s familiar Chuffta and Lonen’s stalwart battle stallion, the incongruously named Buttercup, are all alone in a vast sea of sand. Bára has drained the life out of the land for endless miles around. What little water there is rises in sudden and deadly tides, and is not merely undrinkable salt water, but is actually poisonous to humans.

They seem to be all alone in the world, and absolutely forced to rely upon each other. Initially their pride keeps them apart, but as they journey, the barriers between them break down. It’s an emotional journey from wary trust to love. To the point where they are each a bit too willing to sacrifice themselves for each other, with nearly disastrous consequences. They are still both learning that they are stronger together than either can possibly be separately, and it’s a difficult journey with a lot of two-steps-forward and one-step-back. As it should be.

This is a necessary part of the story, for the action to switch from Bára to Destrye, and for Oria to be forced to leave everything she knows behind so that she can finally become who and what she is meant to be. But the journey itself is grueling, and bears an unfortunate resemblance to another grueling journey in fantasy, that of Frodo and Sam through Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. The land is equally desolate, and the long dark night of the story and the soul is equally difficult to read through.

And it sets up the story for what I hope will be an epic and glorious conclusion in book 4. Soon please!

Review: Oria’s Gambit by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Oria’s Gambit by Jeffe KennedyOria’s Gambit by Jeffe Kennedy
Formats available: ebook
Series: Sorcerous Moons #2
Pages: 198
on August 27th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

A Play For Power
Princess Oria has one chance to keep her word and stop her brother’s reign of terror: She must become queen. All she has to do is marry first. And marry Lonen, the barbarian king who defeated her city bare weeks ago, who can never join her in a marriage of minds, who can never even touch her—no matter how badly she wants him to.
A Fragile Bond
To rule is to suffer, but Lonen never thought his marriage would become a torment. Still, he’s a resourceful man. He can play the brute conqueror for Oria’s faceless officials and bide his time with his wife. And as he coaxes secrets from Oria, he may yet change their fate…
An Impossible DemandWith deception layering on deception, Lonen and Oria must claim the throne and brazen out the doubters. Failure means death— for them and their people.
But success might mean an alliance powerful beyond imagining...

My Review:

lonens war by jeffe kennedyOria’s Gambit picks up where Lonen’s War leaves off. This isn’t a sequel, it is a continuation of the same story. So if you love epic fantasy romance and have not yet read Lonen’s War, go forth and get a copy posthaste. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Also, and I don’t think this is a spoiler, Oria’s very dangerous gambit feels doomed to fail from the very beginning of the story. Not just because this is the middle book in a tetralogy (four scheduled books so far). If there are at least two more books, Oria can’t possibly succeed yet. There wouldn’t be enough story.

But also because Oria is still very much learning, both about politics in general and about her own power in particular. She’s still in the unfortunate position where she believes way too much of what she has been told, even as she proves it wrong at every turn.

And even though the people who taught her are selfish asshats who kept her power suppressed for their own gain. She needs more seasoning before she will be able to see through all the BS that she was indoctrinated with.

This is a story about the building of trust. It is also a story about figuring out that everything that you have been taught is wrong. And that just because someone says they are doing something for your own good, the reality is that they are acting for their own good and don’t give a damn if you get hurt along the way.

As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. That is a good chunk of what happens between Lonen and Oria. They may not be sure of each other at first, but they both want what is best for all of their people. Oria, who has been barred from the circles of power in Bara, sees her homeland’s supreme selfishness as wrong. The Barans have been wasting water in a desert for centuries, using their superior magic to steal it from anyplace that cannot stand against them, without a care for how many people they destroy along the way.

It feels like there’s a worldwide water shortage on this planet, and the Barans are doing more than their fair share to make it worse. They don’t care who they kill or what they destroy as long as they can preserve their supposedly superior lifestyle.

And that’s the drama that plays out between Oria and the powers-that-want-to-continue-to-be in her homeland. Oria, with Lonen’s assistance, is doing her best to work within the system for a solution that has a chance of saving everyone. But the forces that have chosen to defend the status quo are willing to stoop to any means, including mass murder, to maintain their place at the top of the heap.

They see Oria and Lonen as traitors and collateral damage. It is going to take a miracle, and a catastrophe, not necessarily in that order, to change that perspective. If Oria survives.

Escape Rating A-: If you like epic political fantasy, this series is like crack. It has everything. Complex magic, political skullduggery, epic battle sequences, horrible monsters and a love story that looks like it is going to be one for the ages.

Oria and Lonen start out from a position where they don’t trust each other, and with good reason. They begin the story in Lonen’s War on opposite sides of a battlefield. But the more they are forced to work together the more they both discover that an honorable enemy makes a better friend than a treacherous ally.

Their marriage is intended to be a marriage of convenience. Oria requires a spouse in order to grab power before her immature, reckless, selfish and idiotic brother manages to claim it. Yar will be a tool of the priesthood, where Oria thinks for herself.

Oria believes that her power makes it impossible for anyone to touch her without making her faint from overload. That’s why she insists on a marriage of convenience. Lonen, knowing none of this but seeing her as the only way of saving his people, agrees.

But the more they work together, and the more time they spend together, the less sensible that marriage of convenience seems. Not just because Lonen wants the only prize he is likely to get after his conquering of Bara, but because the more they work at being allies, the more that Oria feels for her “barbarian” consort.

Watching her perspective change is marvelous. The seduction scene is beautiful and hot and still manages to respect the necessary boundaries that Oria has drawn around herself. The reader sees that those barriers are slowly falling, but Oria, appropriately for her character, isn’t there yet.

The story ends on a low note, as middle books so often do. Our hero and heroine face grave challenges ahead. I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

Review: A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet + GiveawayA Promise of Fire (Kingmaker Chronicles #1) by Amanda Bouchet
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Kingmaker Chronicles #1
Pages: 448
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on August 2nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Catalia "Cat" Fisa is a powerful clairvoyant known as the Kingmaker. This smart-mouthed soothsayer has no interest in her powers and would much rather fly under the radar, far from the clutches of her homicidal mother. But when an ambitious warlord captures her, she may not have a choice…
Griffin is intent on bringing peace to his newly conquered realm in the magic-deprived south. When he discovers Cat is the Kingmaker, he abducts her. But Cat will do everything in her power to avoid her dangerous destiny and battle her captor at every turn. Although up for the battle, Griffin would prefer for Cat to help his people willingly, and he's ready to do whatever it takes to coax her…even if that means falling in love with her.

My Review:

This is very much of a mixed feelings review. There were parts of this book that I absolutely loved, and parts that drove me completely crazy. And they were often the same parts!

On the one hand, we have a story of revolution. In this world, the non-magical Hoi Polloi are quite literally the middle and lower classes, just as the name implies. The Magoi are the magic wielding upper class – except in Sinta. A family of Hoi Polloi has just “removed” the ruling family and replaced the late unlamented despots with, well, themselves. Also with a rule of law and justice, instead of the previous “administration” of self-indulgence and utter cruelty.

In order to help his family retain their crown, and their lives, the new Sintan warleader invades a peaceful circus and kidnaps the soothsayer. He doesn’t need a fortune teller, but he does need the mysterious Cat, because Cat is hiding a whole lot of power behind heavy makeup and her fortunetelling shtick.

Cat is a kingmaker. She is not merely a soothsayer, as she claims. Cat is a truthsayer. No one can tell a lie in her presence. She also has a host of other powers, some of which she is not yet aware of herself. She also has powerful enemies, and the favor of more than one of the gods.

And this is where things both heat up and go crazy.

Griffin, the Sintan warleader, kidnaps Cat. He threatens to have all of her friends, her family of choice, thrown in jail if she doesn’t go along with him. Cat has been used and abused before because of her talents, and she will do anything to protect those she loves, including give up her much wanted freedom.

That a relationship develops between Griffin and Cat after these events may read like either questionable consent or an unhealthy dose of Stockholm Syndrome to a whole lot of readers. That Cat’s continued resistance to her enforced captivity is treated as “cute” by Griffin’s war band and his family almost sent me out of the story.

Cat’s agency is taken away, and even her right to feel aggrieved by the removal of that agency is undermined at every turn. Looking at other reviews of this book, I’m amazed that this hasn’t squicked a lot more people out.

But there is also a very strong secondary plot about just how ripe this world is for revolution. That Cat decides to help the new Sintan royals figure out how to survive in the cutthroat world into which they have thrust themselves is fascinating. These are good people who have chosen to engage in a system that is not merely corrupt, but also just plain evil. Whether they can win without losing themselves to the dark side of all the forces arrayed against them is going to make for a very interesting series.

On my third hand, the worldbuilding in this series is based on Greek mythology. Not in the sense that concepts were borrowed, but in the literal sense that the Greek pantheon as we know it from our mythology is actively running the place. At least for certain definitions of active and running. Cat draws some of her power directly from Poseidon’s intervention, and Hades lets her borrow Cerberus. The gods are meddling in regular people’s lives for some reason of their own.

The world created in this fantasy romance does not seem to be a descendant of our Earth, at least as so far seen. How did our Greek pantheon get to this world? Something there begs for an explanation that has not yet occurred in the text. And it needs to.

Escape Rating B: All in all, A Promise of Fire turns out to be a compelling read. The worldbuilding is excellent, even though it does need a few details either worked out or explained somewhere along the way. Griffin’s family and their approach to leadership make them a lovely group of people to follow in this world where power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Only the strong and vile survive.

However, the way that Cat is treated and the way that her relationship with Griffin develops gives me a whole lot of pause. But not enough to keep me from looking forward to the next book in the series, Breath of Fire, coming in January.

For another take on A Promise of Fire, check out my friends at The Book Pushers later this week.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Sourcebooks Casablanca is giving away 10 copies of A Promise of Fire to lucky entrants on this tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Emperor’s Arrow by Lauren D.M. Smith

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Emperor’s Arrow by Lauren D.M. SmithThe Emperor's Arrow by Lauren D.M. Smith
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Pages: 160
Published by Carina Press on July 18th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Grand Prize Winner of Harlequin's 2015 So You Think You Can Write contest
Debut author Lauren D.M. Smith delivers an epic fantasy romance in this soaring tale of a kickass warrior and the emperor she's honor-bound to defend
The bride candidates have been summoned. Their numbers are many, yet only one is an Amazzi warrior. Only one would give her life to protect him.
Evony of Aureline, warrior of her people, has no intention of becoming a hideous old man's bride. Though her people have sworn their loyalty to the legendary emperor Galen, Evony knows little of courts and intrigue. It's simply not her world.
Yet it's on the palace training grounds where Evony's archery skills gain her the respect of soldiers and legates alike. The emperor himself takes notice of the beautiful, ruthless warrior. In turn, the young, steely eyed Galen is nothing at all what Evony expected.
This man could very well conquer her heart. But does he feel the same?
As the rivalry among the remaining bride candidates intensifies and the plot for the throne unfolds, Evony must make a grave choice: fulfill her destiny and protect her people or follow her heart and pursue true love.
Either way, the honor of the Amazzi people and the future of the empire now rests with Evony of Aureline. For she is the Emperor's Arrow.

My Review:

Based on the description, I was expecting The Emperor’s Arrow to be a bit like The Champion of Baresh or The Empress Game. And there are resemblances, but not nearly as close as I expected. Instead, the slightly Roman flavor to the setting and the romance between an emperor and a barbarian remind me a bit of Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera. All books terrific company to be among.

The Emperor of this fantasy empire calls on all of the noble houses under his rule to send a daughter to compete to be his bride. And therefore his empress. While the nobility see this as a true competition, Emperor Galen has a different agenda in mind.

And, while he wouldn’t mind finding an empress, what he is really looking for are hostages. The competition is a nonthreatening way to get all the noble houses to send him a person who can become a hostage for their good behavior – if he needs one.

He knows that some of his nobles have made repeated attempts to assassinate him – one of those attempts took the life of his beloved sister. But he doesn’t yet know which one. Or even worse, which ones. Hence the bride competition.

While parts of the bride competition read like a fantasy version of The Bachelor, there is a real contest being conducted. Contestants are eliminated, not necessarily for their performance, but because it has been ascertained that their families are loyal.

Some of the contestants remain, not necessarily because they have a chance of becoming empress, but out of a need to, as the old adage goes, “Keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies closer”.

And then there’s Evony, an Amazzi warrior of the Aureline. Her people are unquestioningly loyal to the emperor, but they are also numbered among the first families of the empire, even as isolated as they generally are. Evony answers the summons to the bridal games because her people’s honor demands it.

The Emperor plans to use her unwavering loyalty to provide him with eyes and ears among the contestants. Evony plans to use the competition to find a man to sire her child.

Neither of them counts on falling in love.

Escape Rating A-: Harlequin was right, this author definitely can write. The author of The Emperor’s Arrow was the Grand Prize Winner of Harlequin’s 2015 So You Think You Can Write contest. This book shows that she absolutely can, and it is marvelous.

The story is wrapped in multiple layers. Evony is a terrific character. On the one hand, she is a fish out of water, so any necessary explanations to her of how the court works and what is going on within it, also work as explanations to the reader.

Evony herself is a great character to follow, because her perspective on court life and court intrigue is so refreshing. Evony is a warrior. She is also an extremely straightforward person, to the point of being very, very blunt. She looks at all the decorative women in the bridal competition and can’t figure out why anyone would allow themselves to be kept from learning to defend themselves, or why some of these women believe that they have no choices about their fate and their future.

She is not unusual among her people in being a warrior. Her tribe has many more female children than male children, and every person is trained in self-defense. Many, many of the women are warriors. She sees herself, her independence, her agency and her self-respect as being normal. Anyone who doesn’t have those things she feels a bit sorry for.

Her people also do not elevate their leaders above their people. So she sees the emperor as just another warrior, albeit one with more responsibility and at the center of more danger. She argues with him, disagrees with him, and calls him by his first name. She tells him things he doesn’t want to hear.

The one thing she never does is bore him. And he trusts her because it is clear from the very beginning that she does not have a political agenda. Until she falls in love with the emperor, and refuses to obey his orders to remain safe and far away. From that point on, her only agenda is to keep him safe and help him catch the people who want him dead.

And in the middle of the romance, there is also a wonderful female friendship between Evony and another of the bride candidates – the shy and somewhat diffident Admina. They discuss their lives, their hopes and their futures, and bond from two very different perspectives. It is refreshing and wonderful that their relationship is not about discussing men, but about who they are and who they want to be. It passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors.

In the end, The Emperor’s Arrow is an absolutely marvelous fantasy romance. I am looking forward with great pleasure to much, much more from this author.

Review: For Crown and Kingdom by Grace Draven and Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: For Crown and Kingdom by Grace Draven and Jeffe KennedyFor Crown and Kingdom Formats available: ebook
Pages: 226
on May 29th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

~Two fantasy romance tales by bestselling and award winning authors Jeffe Kennedy and Grace Draven~

***The Crown of the Queen: a novella of the Twelve Kingdoms by Jeffe Kennedy

It's been a lifetime since librarian Dafne Mailloux saw the coronation of the tyrant who destroyed her family. She did her part to pull him off the High Throne. But his daughter, the would-be Queen, and her sisters must still tame their conquest. If her victory is to last, Dafne must forge peace with the subtle, ruthless methods of a diplomat--and the worst memories of her life...

***The Undying King by Grace Draven

The stories are told in whispers, even after so long: of a man whose fair rule soured when he attained eternal youth. Imprisoned by a sorceress wife in a city out of time and place, he has passed into legend. Few believe in him, and fewer would set their hopes on his mercy. But Imogen has no choice. To break the curse that's isolated her since birth, she'll find the Undying King--and answer his secrets with her own...

My Review:

For Crown and Kingdom is a duology, two separate works of fantasy romance. I read the first entry in the pair, The Crown of the Queen, not long ago, and absolutely loved it. Last night, I read The Undying King by Grace Draven, and loved it almost as much. This is the first time I’ve read something by this author, and now I understand why my friends at The Book Pushers love her Master of Crows so much.

Someday, when my virtual TBR pile isn’t virtually toppling over, I have to read Master of Crows.

undying king by grace dravenBut in the meantime, I have this little treat of a story in The Undying King.

The story has the feeling of being inside a myth. If fiction is the lie that tells the truth, this story feels like one of those truths that exists back in the mists of time. Even though there is no fairy tale of Cededa the Fair and the lost city of Tineroth, there should be. It feels true.

And it feels true because it does an excellent job of combining elements that we know, things that feel true because even though these specific incidents might not have happened, they echo things that do.

Imogen is a young woman with a death curse. It’s not that she herself is cursed to die, no more than any more than any other mortal, but she is cursed that every person she touches dies instantly. This has nothing to do with intent, or at least not her intent. The curse is part of her blood and bone.

The first time she touches a person without gloves, it is to bring her adoptive mother the release of death, after a long, painful and debilitating illness. Niamh can’t be saved, she can only be given the mercy that shortens her last few hours of agony.

But she leaves Imogen alone, and with the burden of a promise. To read her diary, take the magic key found within, and make her way to the lost city of Tineroth. In fabled Tineroth the Undying King haunts and protects his crumbling city. And Cededa is a much-practiced (4,000 years gives one a lot of time to practice!) sorcerer who should be able to remove Imogen’s curse.

4,000 years of loneliness and endless existence have burned the anger and cruelty out of Cededa the Butcher, as he was once known. With nothing but time to reflect on his past deeds, the man who once slaughtered cities beyond counting has nothing left but regret, remorse and the wish for an end. He has become again what he was in the beginning, Cededa the Fair, the handsomest man that many, including especially Imogen, have ever seen.

When Imogen reaches him after a magical journey, he bargains with her for the one thing no one else has ever been able to give him. In return for removing her curse, Cededa asks Imogen for four months of her company in his living ghost town.

He seeks companionship. She hopes for the ability to live a normal life. Instead, they find that her curse matches his mistaken burden every bit as well as they match each other. Until the world intrudes, and steals her away from the life and the man she has come to love.

Escape Rating A: Like The Crown of the Queen, The Undying King feels utterly complete at its ending, a rare feat for a novella. (I only said I didn’t love it quite as much as The Crown of the Queen because that story is part of a series I am already totally hooked on).

The Undying King is a beautiful love story, while it explores themes that resonate long after the book is done.

It is a coming of age story. Imogen is relatively young, and certainly somewhat innocent, at the beginning of the story. She is also intelligent and well-taught, but she has no experience with relationships of any kind. Her adoptive mother Niamh is the only person she speaks with, for fear that someone will accidentally touch her and die.

Her mother and mentor sends her on a quest, to return the key that Cededa gave her long ago, and to find a cure for her curse. Her journey is both magically begun and magically eased – the key makes her path sure and short, and creates a bridge for her where none exists.

Tineroth and Cededa have faded into the mists of legend. Even the stories are fading. His is the story of the ring that came with a curse. He wanted immortality, and he found it. But that gift binds him to the place that gave it to him. He cannot leave, and no one can find him. His loneliness is absolute, along with his regrets.

Imogen and Cededa are equal and opposite. She kills with a touch, and he can never die. Separately, they live in complete isolation. But together, her curse brings him just enough mortality for him to feel life again. And his resistance to her curse makes him the one person she can touch whenever and however she likes.

Their love seems almost preordained. But there is always a snake in the garden. In this case, it is Imogen’s unknown past that drives them apart. Because of course Imogen is a lost princess, and that makes her a pawn.

When she makes herself a queen, the ending is glorious.

Review: The Pages of the Mind by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Pages of the Mind by Jeffe KennedyThe Pages of the Mind (The Uncharted Realms #1; The Twelve Kingdoms #4) by Jeffe Kennedy
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Twelve Kingdoms #4, Uncharted Realms #1
Pages: 432
Published by Kensington on May 31st 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

An Orphan's Throne
Magic has broken free over the Twelve Kingdoms. The population is beset by shapeshifters and portents, landscapes that migrate, uncanny allies who are not quite human…and enemies eager to take advantage of the chaos.
Dafne Mailloux is no adventurer--she's a librarian. But the High Queen trusts Dafne's ability with languages, her way of winnowing the useful facts from a dusty scroll, and even more important, the subtlety and guile that three decades under the thumb of a tyrant taught her.
Dafne never thought to need those skills again. But she accepts her duty. Until her journey drops her into the arms of a barbarian king. He speaks no tongue she knows but that of power, yet he recognizes his captive as a valuable pawn. Dafne must submit to a wedding of alliance, becoming a prisoner-queen in a court she does not understand. If she is to save herself and her country, she will have to learn to read the heart of a wild stranger. And there are more secrets written there than even Dafne could suspect…
Praise for The Mark of the Tala
"Magnificent…a richly detailed fantasy world." --RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars, Top Pick
"Well written and swooningly romantic." --Library Journal, starred review

My Review:

crown of the queen by jeffe kennedyI have, for the most part, adored Jeffe Kennedy’s Twelve Kingdoms series. Ami’s book, The Tears of the Rose, was the lone exception, because Ami spends the first half of the book as a spoiled princess bitch. While she gets much, much better, the first half of the book drags a bit.

As much as I loved the bridge novella featuring librarian Dafne Mailloux, The Crown of the Queen, Dafne’s own story in The Pages of the Mind drove me batty. I loved the beginning, and liked the end, but in this case it’s the middle that gave me fits.

Let me explain…

Dafne has been the librarian at Castle Ordnang for decades. Her family held the land and castle that formerly sat on the same spot, but when High King Uorsin decided that Castle Columba would be the seat of his new throne, the end was inevitable. He conquered the castle, razed the building, and built his capital in its place. Daphne was the only member of her family to survive the siege. While she may be, as she says, “ a demon on documents” in her early years it was her ability to hide in plain sight that saved her life over and over.

That and the fact that Queen Salena charged her with caring for her daughters, the princess Ursula, Ami and Andi. Ursula is now High Queen, after the events in The Talon of the Hawk and The Crown of the Queen. It is Daphne’s task to be Ursula’s adviser.

talon of the hawk by jeffe kennedyDafne has always been an observer and recorder. That’s what librarians do. So Daphne is more surprised than anyone when Ursula tasks her with the position of ambassador, first to the island kingdom of Nahanau, and then to the court of Dasnaria. Nahanau has been damaged by the movement of the magical barrier that formerly surrounded the Tala, and Dasnaria is the home of Ursula’s lover Harlan. His people might ally with the Twelve, now Thirteen Kingdoms, or might attempt to conquer them instead. The Kingdoms are still recovering from the late King’s treachery and tyranny, Ursula needs to stave off that possible war.

So off Dafne goes, with Harlan’s older brother Prince Kral as escort and guide.

We expect treachery, or at least some double-dealing on Kral’s part. It seems to be what the Dasnarians are known for. So when Kral essentially hands Dafne over to King Nakoa KauPo as either a hostage, sex slave or unwilling bride, readers are not totally surprised.

But the twists and turns that overtake Dafne’s fate from that point forward change the course of her life into directions she never expected. And is never sure that she wants or can even accept.

Escape Rating B-: I loved the beginning. Dafne’s life as librarian turned adviser fit right in with the snippets of her character we have seen in the earlier books. She has been working all of her life towards seeing Ursula crowned High Queen. And she not only expects the job of Royal Adviser, but is totally prepared and qualified for it.

She enjoys being the power behind the throne, and doesn’t see herself as powerful at all. She is merely an instrument of Ursula’s power. And she’s very, very good at it.

But when she is effectively abandoned at the Nahanau court, the story, along with Daphne’s personality, went temporarily off the rails for this reader. Because the story devolved into both the fated mate trope and the magic peen fallacy. That it turns out that both of these issues are actually manipulated into being by a third party redeems things somewhat, but not completely.

Dafne seems to become completely enslaved to sex with King Nakoa, to the point where she loses all her sense at many points. Yes, this sometimes happens when people discover how good sex can actually be, but that level of crazy usually happens earlier in their lives. Dafne is old enough that she believes she is no longer capable of bearing children. Becoming that mushy-headed just didn’t feel right.

For a significant part of the story, Dafne understands little to nothing of the language around her. The Nahanaus speak a language that is not derived from any of the several that Dafne knows. So there is a big portion of the story where a person who is only comfortable when in full possession of all the knowledge available has none to work with. It feels off-character when Dafne is forced to resort to stereotypical feminine wiles that she has never relied upon in order to get information felt wrong.

There is also a huge power imbalance in this relationship. Nakoa essentially kidnaps Dafne and keeps her prisoner. That she falls for him in these circumstances where she is totally dependent on him smacks of Stockholm Syndrome. Which does get called out later in the story, and then all too easily dismissed.

It turns out that everyone in this situation is being manipulated by a third party, one whose eventual advent into the story is explosive enough to kick the story back on track.

One of the things that I liked best about the previous entries in this series is that the princesses did not need to change who they were to find fulfillment and happiness, or to find their equal in love. Dafne has to change completely to get through most of her adventures. It’s only at the end where she goes back to being the intellectual powerhouse that is her true self.

At the end of this story, there are several people still on the loose who seriously need to get their comeuppance, particularly Kral. While events turned out for the best, his duplicity still needs to be accounted for. And I look forward to reading all about it in The Edge of the Blade.

Review: The Crown of the Queen by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Crown of the Queen by Jeffe KennedyThe Crown of the Queen Formats available: ebook
Series: Twelve Kingdoms #3.6
Pages: 100
on May 24th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website
Goodreads

Dafne Mailloux, librarian and temporary babysitter to the heirs to the High Throne of the Twelve – now Thirteen – Kingdoms, finds it difficult to leave the paradise of Annfwn behind. Particularly that trove of rare books in temptingly unfamiliar languages. But duty calls, and hers is to the crown. It’s not like her heart belongs elsewhere. But how can she crown a queen who hesitates to take the throne?

My Review:

talon of the hawk by jeffe kennedyJeffe Kennedy’s Talon of the Hawk made my “Best of 2015” list. I have adored every entry in her Twelve Kingdoms series, and was just a bit sad to see this epic fantasy series conclude last year, no matter how much I loved that conclusion. So I was pleased as punch when I was contacted to review The Crown of the Queen, a bridge novella between The Twelve Kingdoms and their continuation in The Uncharted Realms, which begins with The Pages of the Mind later this month.

When last we left our heroines, the war had just ended in a rather spectacular fashion. Princess Ursula had defeated the tyrant king Uorsin in single-combat, and the crown of the Twelve Kingdoms had just become hers. But Ursula, while she is picking up the reins of leadership, is unwilling to officially pick up the crown that she fought so hard for.

Uorsin was mad, ensorcelled and an utter bastard. Also tyrannical in a way that would fit right into Game of Thrones, complete with the bloody banquets. But he was also Ursula’s father, and she can’t seem to manage to forgive herself for killing him, no matter how utterly necessary his killing might have been.

And it was, after all, in single combat. It could easily have gone the other way, and Ursula was certainly fighting for her life, as well as the lives of everyone in the Twelve Kingdoms. A court of law would certainly call it self-defense.

But guilt is never logical, and Ursula is wallowing in it.

The heroine of this tale is Dafne Mailloux, the official and often disregarded librarian of the Twelve Kingdoms. Dafne, the daughter of a defeated kingdom, retreated to the library as a place of safety, in the hopes that the increasingly mad Uorsin would forget she existed.

His late queen entrusted the raising of her daughters, especially the future queen Ursula, to the young recluse. It was Queen Salena’s plan that Dafne would become her daughter’s high councilor in the future that she sacrificed herself to bring to pass. Now it is Dafne’s duty to bring some common-sense order out of the chaos that followed the death of the mad king.

And to, if necessary, shake some sense into his daughter. Dafne must take up her mantle, and deliver some unwelcome truths to the woman who must become High Queen – before the restless factions of the Twelve Kingdoms manage to shatter the kingdom back into its constituent parts.

Uorsin conquered the Twelve by ruthless war. The warrior-princess Ursula must learn to rule them with justice and law – before they get ahead of her and start ruling her.

Escape Rating A: I seldom give novellas an A rating. Not because I don’t enjoy them, but because the short length usually leaves me wanting something. The Crown of the Queen is an exception. Much as I might want to spend more time in the Twelve Kingdoms, this interlude does not need a full-length novel to tell its necessary tale. It would probably feel bloated if it were stretched to novel-length.

Dafne provides an excellent perspective on these events. She is at the center, but yet she stands a bit to one side. Her job is to provide advice and counsel, which requires that she keep a level head and a slightly outside point of view to do her job well. While she has been at the center of the court all her life, she is not a member of the royal family. Her job is to do the best she can for the kingdom and its people, often by telling the High Queen and the royal family things that they do not want to hear, no matter how much they might need to hear them.

We also have hints that Dafne’s own story will be bigger and more important some time later, but this is not her story. It is the story of Ursula’s coronation and the cementing of her place on the throne of the Twelve Kingdoms as they become Thirteen Kingdoms and probably Fourteen.

As Dafne herself says, they need a name that doesn’t involve numbers.

What we see in this story is Dafne negotiating events. It is up to her to get Ursula out of her funk and get her royal butt officially on the throne. With a lot of tough love, and help from Ursula’s partner Harlan, Dafne sets Ursula on the course to her coronation and all of the pomp and circumstance that must follow in order for Ursula’s reign to be seen as legitimate.

Dafne does a great job of making the machinations of politics seem not just interesting, but actually exciting. As a faithful reader of the series, I had tears in my own eyes during Ursula’s coronation ceremony.

pages of the mind by jeffe kennedyDafne’s deep knowledge of all the players in this drama helps her achieve her goals, and gives readers a great refresher on previous events at the same time. It marvelously whets the appetite for the epic story that is to come.

Review: Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Captive Prince by C.S. PacatCaptive Prince (Captive Prince, #1) by C.S. Pacat
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Captive Prince #1
Pages: 270
Published by Berkley on April 7th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

From global phenomenon C. S. Pacat comes the first in her critically acclaimed trilogy—with a bonus story.
Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…
Includes an exclusive extra story! 

My Review:

I picked up the opportunity to review the Captive Prince trilogy because my friends at The Book Pushers raved about it – especially those Book Pushers who were outside the U.S. and couldn’t take advantage of the publisher’s offer of review copies.

I’m glad I did.

Captive Prince is fantasy, but not in the sense that there is magic operating in this world, at least not so far. It’s fantasy because this decadent quasi-Renaissance society is manifestly not the world we know from our history.

The countries of Akielos and Vere are at war, and seemingly have been for decades. Or possibly centuries. They each think of the other as decadent and corrupt, but to our 21st century eyes, that decadence and corruption is only a matter of degree.

The economies of both countries include slave labor, from the lowest levels to the highest. Slaves perform menial labor. Slaves are also trained as pleasure-slaves, meaning sex slaves. While it seems that slaves in Akielos are treated better than they are in Vere, it is all somewhat relative, as they are still slaves and can still be bought and sold, even away from their country and home.

The institution of slavery plays an important part in this story, because when we first meet our hero, Damen, he is being informed that his half-brother has killed all of Damen’s supporters, friends, and slaves, and Damen is being sent to Vere as a pleasure slave. Until that moment, Damen was the Crown Prince of Akielos and the rightful heir to the throne. In one move, his bastard half-brother has stripped him of his identity and his future.

And he has sent him to the one place where Damen cannot reveal his true identity and drum up support for retaking his kingdom. Not just because Vere is an enemy, but because Damen killed the Crown Prince of Vere in battle, and no one in Vere will ever forgive him for it.

Tortured, beaten, drugged and raped, Damen is better off as a slave in Vere than in revealing his true identity among people who will kill him on sight. If they recognize him. As punishment, as revenge, his bastard half brother has guaranteed that this revenge is not only served cold but will keep on chilling for as long as Damen lives.

If he can manage to adapt and keep his mouth shut, that is. Damen is used to giving commands and having them obeyed. Swallowing enough of his pride to keep himself alive is a challenge. We see this story entirely from Damen’s perspective, and we watch his struggle to piece together a way to submit enough to bend but not break.

His punishment is compounded by his half-brother’s diabolical choice of just whom to give Damen to. His owner is Laurent, the second son of the late King of Vere. Laurent is blond, cold and 20 years old. His uncle, who is possibly the equal of Damen’s half-brother in evil, is Regent. It is clear to Laurent, and to the reader, that his uncle does not intend Laurent to survive the ten months needed for him o turn 21 and achieve his majority and his throne.

Damen and Laurent should be allies, but they can’t be. If Laurent ever discovers that Damen is the man who killed his beloved brother, Damen’s life is forfeit. But if they don’t stick together, they are both dead.

princes gambit by cs pacatThe horns of this dilemma sweep them, and us, into the next book in the trilogy, Prince’s Gambit.

Escape Rating B: It took me a while to get into this story, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down.

So far, at least, this is fantasy of the “it isn’t real history so it must be fantasy” school. So far, there’s no magic.

What there is, however, is dense political corruption along with a level of sexual decadence that reminds me a bit of Kushiel’s Dart. It’s not that, at least so far, anyone derives direct sexual pleasure from torture, so much as everyone has 16 layers of agendas, and most of those in power derive a lot of pleasure, including sexual, from forcing their will on everyone they can.

And public sex and public rape seems to be a spectator sport among the upper crust. I can’t manage to call them noble, even in context.

Writing the story strictly from Damen’s point of view was an absolutely brilliant choice. As readers, we are lost in this world, and Damen is also lost in his new role. As he picks up the pieces, so do we. Having him gather his intel slowly and carefully worked much better for this reader than vast infodumps.

Howsomever, there are multiple vectors that make the reader uncomfortable. Damen’s forced immersion in slavery is cruel enough, and his exploration and survival of his new circumstances is not for the faint of heart or stomach. He is beaten and abused, but the way that slaves are treated in general, not just Damen, does cause the gorge to rise. In other stories I have said that slavery dehumanizes the masters more than the slaves, and that is certainly true here. This world is ugly.

A different discomfort arose for this reader at Damen’s situation. In fantasy, we’ve seen this trope before. The heir is presumed dead and either enslaved or hidden. It’s not uncommon. And Damen’s journey does follow the trope. The description of his dehumanizing circumstances went on just a bit too long for this reader. I got the point and wanted to get on with the story.

Speaking of getting to the point, it felt obvious to this reader that Laurent’s debauched postures were just that, postures. He knows he’s slated to be killed, and that his uncle is setting him up. Everything we see him display is so blatantly a mask, I’m amazed that no one in the story sees it. I’m not saying he isn’t as much a cold bitch as he pretends to be, but it is also very clearly a mask. Whoever or whatever Laurent is under that mask is something we haven’t seen a glimpse of yet.

This is also a very slow-burning male/male romance between Damen and Laurent. Very, very slow, and that’s appropriate. They are on opposite sides of so many divides, that anything other than an extremely slow buildup of trust would seem fake.

But their society’s approach to love and sex is fascinaating. It’s also a big twist from the world we know. There is a very large stigma attached to illegitimate births, and the stigma seems to fall equally on both the man and the woman. Male/female sex is almost taboo because of its potential for procreation. But the prohibition is on procreative sex, not on sex. Therefore, romantic relationships seem to be almost exclusively same-sex, both men with men and women with women. These relationships are public and accepted, even celebrated in some cases. It’s a very different take on sexual mores and sexual equality, and I’m curious to how this will fit into the next parts of the story.