Tag: high fantasy

Review: Brought to Light (Magic Emporium) by Eliot Grayson

A fun story with a good plot and a quick hook.

3.5 out of 5 stars

E-book. Kindle Unlimited. 187 pages. Published January 21st 2021 by Smoking Teacup Books

Blurb:

A hitman and a fae walk into a café…

Callum always gets the job done—whether he likes it or not—but this job isn’t like any other. The target’s too young, too pretty, and too appealing for comfort, and the clients are offering more threats than cash. And either the target poisoned his hot chocolate or he’s going crazy, because now magic stores and wizard-looking dudes are appearing out of nowhere. It’s really not Callum’s day.

Linden’s on the run, and the human realm’s a good place to hide from evil sorcerers who think Linden’s the answer to a prophecy. But his enemy has found a way to send a very human and very dangerous assassin after him—a man who could kill Linden with one hand. Linden should be terrified, but his knees go weak for all the wrong reasons.

When Linden’s family is taken hostage, spending the night with Callum ought to be the last thing on his mind, but Linden can’t resist the chance to fulfill his deepest fantasies before sacrificing his own life. Callum knows he should walk away—it’s not his fight. But the beautiful fae is under his skin and now protecting Linden and his family feels more important than his own survival. A human learning to feel. A fae learning to trust. Can two worlds merge into one true love?

Brought to Light is part of the Magic Emporium Series. Each book stands alone, but each one features an appearance by Marden’s Magic Emporium, a shop that can appear anywhere, but only once and only when someone’s in dire need. This book contains explicit scenes, a magic flashlight, a prophecy that doesn’t quite work out the way anyone expects, and a guaranteed HEA. 

Likes:

  • Good hook.
  • Interesting item from the emporium.
  • Callum was surprisingly likeable for a hitman.
  • Linden was nice.
  • The non-romantic plot was good.
  • The last few chapters had a good amount of tension.

Dislikes:

  • Not a ton of world building.
  • Easy for the reader to know how the prophecy would be satisfied.
  • Linden felt a little passive.
  • I’d like a short story follow up.

I’m always a little leery about books that have a main character who would typically be called a bad guy. So I wasn’t sure how I’d like this book, given that Callum is a hitman, and a good one at that. Luckily, Callum was very likeable. Yes, he kills people for a living, but he had a code of conduct. The fact that he immediately realized that Linden wasn’t like his usual targets definitely earned him brownie points, as was the fact that he cared for his friend and work partner Jesse.

I also found myself enjoying Callum’s reactions to learning about magic and multiple realms. It wasn’t over the top, more of a grudging ‘guess I have to add this into my world view’ type thing. Callum was practical no matter what happened, and watching him go through the story was fun.

Linden was also a likeable character. The fact that he removed himself from a dangerous situation so that the people he cared about weren’t caught in the crossfire was noble. Plus, Linden was a genuinely sweet person. Did he do much to protect himself? No, but that’s what Callum was for. Linden just got swept up in a mad man’s delusions and was trying his best to survive.

The romantic tension simmered beneath the surface between Linden and Callum for a while before they acted on it. Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, the two fit together really well. The smut was good, and I wouldn’t have minded more.

The non-romantic plot was solid, and did a good job of keeping both men together as well as giving some serious stakes if they failed. The bad guy was the perfect amount of unlikeable, and his minions were plentiful.

There’s not a ton of world building in this book, which I kind of expected given that it’s a standalone. Enough was explained that I didn’t feel at a loss while reading, but looking back, I do have some minor questions.

What I do want is a short story or novella follow up, showing how Callum and Linden have adjusted to their new lives. Both experience some drastic life changes at the end of the book. There is also a hint of romance between two other characters who I’d love to see get their own story.

I loved the item that Callum got from the emporium. I had an idea of how it would be used, which turned out to be completely wrong. I can’t be mad at that, though. The ending was very satisfying, with a good amount of tension through the final chapters. It was easy to tell how the prophecy was wrong, but that just made me eager to see how everything would end up.

I’ve read a lot from Elliot Grayson in the past, and while I prefer their longer series, this was a fun book.

Review: Consorting with Dragons by Sera Trevor

More about intrigue and social jockeying than dragons.

4 out of 5 stars

E-book. Kindle Unlimited. 2nd, Expanded Editio., 306 pages. Published April 7th 2018 (first published July 28th 2014)

Blurb:

Lord Jasen of Grumhul, an impoverished young nobleman, has come to the Draelands to find a rich husband to help pay his father’s debts. To the shock of everyone, he ends up attracting the attention of King Rilvor himself, and the dragons who control the magic in the land. Becoming royalty wasn’t something Jasen either expected or wanted, but he can’t control his growing feelings for kind and handsome king. Scheming factions at Court conspire to keep him from Rilvor’s side, and now Jasen has to decide if the chance at true love with Rilvor is worth the burden of being the husband of a king.

This sweet and funny Cinderfella romance is complete at ~85000 words and ends in a solid HEA. After all, true love always wins in fairy tales!

Likes:

  • Hooked fast.
  • Liked Jasen and Rilvor.
  • Rilvor’s kids.
  • Low angst.
  • Risyda.
  • No homophobia.
  • The daily intrigue.
  • World building.

Dislikes:

  • Dragons didn’t get much page time.
  • Jasen and Rilvor didn’t spend much time together.
  • Jasen complains a lot for someone who has it good.
  • Kept waiting for something to go wrong.
  • Jasen’s being dragon called wasn’t addressed for a long time.
  • The romance felt like a distant second.

Note: I read the expanded version of this story, which is a full novel. I did not read the novella, and can’t compare the two.

Every once in a while I’ll come across a book that’s fun while I’m reading, but that, when I look back on it, has major flaws. This is one of those books.

I was hooked fast. I liked Jasen a lot because he’s not naïve. He knows that he’s essentially being taken to market and sold to a husband. But he’s not angry or bitter about it. He’s realistic about what’s going on, but also determined to make the best of it. Like how, when his father’s carriage gets stuck in a rut, Jasen gets out and helps the servants get it unstuck. It means getting muddy, but that’s the only way they’re going to move.

I know the blurb describes the book as a Cinderfella story, but I didn’t get that vibe. Sure, King Rilvor is also looking for a spouse, but there’s not a lot of similarities between Consorting with Dragons and the typical Cinderella story. Which is a good thing, in my mind.

Sure, Jasen is a country bumpkin compared to the other men and women at the castle. But I never felt too bad for him because of it. For all that Jasen complains about being behind the curve on things like manners and etiquette, everything always works out for him. When I got to around the 50% mark, I kept expecting something terrible to happen to him, but he skates through everything relatively unscathed.

Rilvor was charming, both as a king and as Jasen’s love interest. I liked that he was older, and that he wasn’t supposed to have been king. I wish he had gotten point of view sections as well. He’s got a rich backstory that could have been expanded upon. And his four children were a surprisingly nice addition to the story.

Unfortunately, Rilvor and Jasen didn’t spend a lot of time together. Their meetings were sparse and short. That did make each meeting more impactful, but when I looked back at the story as a whole, it meant that there wasn’t a ton of romance. I’m the kind of person who likes romance to be more about the dozens of little moments rather than a few big ones. And those sweet, intimate moments were lacking.

The story mostly revolved around the social lives and daily intrigue of Jasen and the other marriage candidates. They were all sequestered in the castle for a final round of social polishing before being put up on the marriage market. This allowed Jasen to make up for being so poorly educated, but it also took up the majority of the page space. I was impressed with the world building, but I wanted more time spent on the romance.

Risyda gets a shout out for being awesome. I was excited that she was interested in women, and got a little hint of romance. I also love that there was no homophobia at all in the book.

My final complaint is about the dragons. They existed mostly in the background. Which was definitely a disappointment, since a big reason I picked up the book in the first place was because it had dragons. I also thought it was strange that Jasen’s being dragon-called wasn’t brought up for a long time.

In the end, I’m glad I picked up this book. I enjoyed reading it. It just wasn’t what I hoped for.

Review: The Emerald Prince by Kayci Morgan

DNF 68%. Not worth it.

1.5 out of 5 stars

DNF 68%

E-book. 192 pages. Published April 19th 2014 by Forbidden Lust

Blurb:

In a kingdom faced with civil war, an idealistic prince must abandon the foreign princess he desires for an arranged marriage to an influential knight. Together, the prince and knight travel north to deal with an army marching on the kingdom’s borders, only to discover the biggest threat to the crown is the princess they left behind.

Prince Elliot had everything—wealth, power, the love of a beautiful woman. It wasn’t enough. More than anything he wanted to prove himself worthy of his crown. When negotiations for his sister’s arranged marriage to Sir Blaine fell apart, he was asked to take her place and marry the knight.

Sir Blaine was adored throughout the kingdom for his strategic mind and feats of bravery. He was rewarded with the greatest gift a king could offer a knight—the princess’s hand in marriage.

But Blaine found the brazen Prince Elliot far more enticing. 

Likes:

  • Female villain.
  • Victoria is the smartest of the bunch.

Dislikes:

  • The blurb is misleading.
  • Overused tropes everywhere.
  • Zariya’s evilness is heavy-handed and unrealistic.
  • The lack of magical protection is ridiculous.
  • Plot holes are “covered” with bullshit excuses.
  • Can’t tell if Elliot even likes men or he’s just being manipulated.
  • Never got invested in the romance.
  • Elliot was an idiot.
  • Rape scene.
  • Heterosexual romance subplot, complete with sex scene.
  • No idea why Blaine loves Elliot, or if it’s just him being manipulated by magic.
  • Lots of little writing mistakes.

DNF 68%

This book was to fantasy romance what light beer is to alcohol.

I was a few chapters in when I realized that the writing reminded me of being back in college creative writing classes. So many people thought they were being different, when really their stories were full of overused tropes. That’s what this book is. The only reason I read so far into it was because I wanted to see Zariya get her due. But eventually, I got so disgusted I had to stop.

The actual writing itself isn’t too bad, if you ignore little mistakes like ‘fficers’ instead of ‘officers’. And I did actually like Blaine. He was completely gay but was being forced to marry a woman, knowing it would make them both miserable. He didn’t fight back against his father’s lust for power, only getting mad when it came to how stubborn Elliot was. When Blaine’s mother pointed out that only Elliot could get under Blaine’s skin, I thought that was a great bit of character building.

Unfortunately, Elliot didn’t interest me at all. My first note about the book is literally that Elliot seems like an idiot. Of course, he’s being controlled by Zariya’s magic, but still. He’s an idiot. He “wanted to be more than a toy prince in a paper crown.” Yet he’d never been in battle and even had to be told why the Ghas were trying to attack the fort.

It honestly felt as though the author wanted to write two different stories – one about Blaine and Elliot and one about Victoria. Victoria is Elliot’s sister, and she gets her own chapters and her own story. She even gets sex scenes, which was a huge surprise to me. Victoria isn’t even mentioned in the blurb, and here is a heterosexual romance in the middle of a gay romance. It’s 1.) weird. 2.) not why I picked up the book. And 3.) filled with exactly the sort of traditional misogyny that made me turn away from heterosexual romance in the first place. As much as I liked Victoria as a character, her story wasn’t the one I wanted to read.

I wanted to read a romance. I honestly don’t feel like I even got that. Elliot gave no indication that he was attracted to men at all. It made me wonder if his attraction to Blaine was purely because of Zariya’s magic. The fact that I couldn’t tell even after reading more than half the book is telling. Because if he was being controlled, then there’s no romance, just manipulation.

I’m not even sure why Blaine even liked the prince. They barely knew each other, and yet Blaine is head over heels. He also got whammied by Zariya’s magic, and again I have to wonder about what his real feelings were.

I did like that there was a female villain. I didn’t like that she was basically just a seductress with vague powers of suggestion. The fact that her powers only worked on those who didn’t see her as a threat was cool. But it did raise a lot of questions. Like, why no one was protecting the king and prince from magical attacks?

That ties in with the feeling of being back in a creative writing class. The lack of magical protection is a huge plot hole. And trying to cover it up with a throwaway line about how all the people with magic serve in the temples and they should be protecting the castle from there doesn’t cut it. If anything, it’s like slapping a Band-Aid over a crack in the sidewalk. We can all still see that there’s a problem.

A combination of things finally made me give up on this book. First, the rape scene. It didn’t involve either of the character, not that that made it better. Once Elliot and Blaine got to the fort where the battle was happening, the book got preachy about how bad war is. Death, destruction, and rape. Elliot, who if you remember, has never been to a battle and had to be told why the Ghas were attacking, immediately came up with a brilliant idea to fix everything. And that moment was what made me drop the book. The toy prince who knows nothing and has no experience is going to save the day? Yeah right.

To say I’m disappointed in this book is a massive understatement. I’ve given up on plenty of books in the past, but this one just annoys me for some reason.