Robin E Glassey

I read the prequel to this series (The Least of Elves) back in December and usually when I like a particular book, I don't wait very long to read the sequels.

Tika's somewhat unusual life as the princess of Rhodea falls into disarray just a few days after her mother's unexpected death. To add salt to the wound, Tika is given a letter from her mother as her 16th birthday gift. And if things were not sufficiently unconventional to the scraggly princess that would prefer to ride her wild (but as she claims to be tame) sand tiger instead of courting handsome princess in parties, the letter devastates her.

Isleen isn't my mother and my true parents died when I was born? WTF??!!

Thus begins a story of how Tika begins to come to grips with her Elven heritage along with her nascent curative and wind magic. After an attempt to murder her foils thanks to divine intervention, her adoptive father King Maric sends her off with a group of his most devout guards to Xanti, an Elf city where her grandparents live and where they hope she will be safe.

Only that if you've read The Least of Elves, you'd know that Tika has a fearsome immortal mad sorcerer Elf as her enemy that will stop at nothing to capture her dead or even worse... alive.

We finally get a glimpse to another softer (albeit still twisted) side of Mortan the Unbound Elf who wishes to save the life of Daiinu, a beautiful female elf that is afflicted with a seemingly incurable poison. His attempt to reverse the curse have been fruitless, but maybe Tika is the answer...

The story then shifts to several minor characters, some of which seem like they will carry an interesting role in the story. Spider is in reality a young nobleman that was forced to live off the streets under a new identity when he discovers something horrible about his stepfather. Little does he know that the wagon chooses to hide as it leaves Taverra is part of the company that is taking Tika to Xanti... Rude and not even remotely picky about the food they feed him, I find the way the accompanying ambassador elves are "keeping an eye on him" during the trip to be amusing. Seems like he's pretty much arrested and will accompany captain Hawley. I think he should be glad for the offer. He's probably going to be safe with the finest guards of Rhodea.

Another recurring character is a minor prince named Dhaved of an enemy nation called Soren. Unlike his war hungry father and older brothers, Dhaved is studious, kind and madly in love with Tika. Too bad she's too busy fawning over her elf tutor Baldaar to be paying any attention to him. Friend-zoned, ouch!

In the prequel novel, we only get to briefly meet Corsyn, Tika's witty and somewhat condescending elf uncle that always held a grudge for his clumsy younger brother Toran. After 16 years of incessant torture in Mortan's castle, Corsyn has been left as a lunatic in shambles that is only being forcibly kept alive for the occasional questioning by Mortan. It's obvious he will continue to hold some sort of role in this story although I have a hunch it will be grim.

All in all, the book is a quick read and while not a literary masterpiece and it holds far too many POV's of teritary characters to be a fully polished novel, the story is very fun and I'm excited to read the remaining books. If you love stories with feisty hybrid elves and a mad elf sorceror that has *literally* cheated death, you'll probably like this story.… (mehr)

I got an ARC copy from the author to read & review via Instafreebie. Some spoilers ahead in my review!

Now, I wasn't fully sure about this book. I didn't really understand the book description on goodreads but I love reading elf epic stories so I entered this novella without prior notions.

Toran is a youthful blond elf of a well positioned family that lives peacefully in the Elf enclave of Xanti. He's handsome, friendly, polite and a rather joyful person. The problem is that well... he's clumsy, struggled to learn human languages and his magic is pitiful. His father has tried to get him to learn a trade for ages and he gets kicked out after countless unintentional blunders. Meanwhile his older brother Corsyn has every talent that he lacks and merely stares at his failures as a mere hindrance to his promising political career.

One day, Toran is entrusted with a job that seems easy enough: deliver a pair of boots to a man that lives in a human village that is a few days away from his home. He's anxious about interacting with humans for the first time but he doesn't want to disappoint the only person that has kept him on a reliable payroll after proving that he isn't too shabby being the village courier guy.

Meanwhile a second story develops. Sosha was born unfortunate in many ways. She was born half human and half wind elemental which seems to be a sort of humanoid magician species. She has been thrown into a conflicting prophecy sort of Harry Potter style where the bad guy discovers a prophecy of an individual of certain traits that will someday be born to defeat him and in his attempts to kill this person, the bad guy ultimately makes the prophecy come true. The villain in this story is an ancient Elf turned evil called Moran that has lived in a hidden ice castle waiting for everyone to forget his existence to conquer the world. He sends a group of undead humanoid minions to kill Sosha and after locking the magic of her elemental mother Kissa with a strange collar, the pureblood human father with Sosha's uncontrolled use of wind magic defeats the goons and hide in a remote human village under a new identity. The mother Kissa was murdered that night and Sosha's face was maimed with claw scratches by terrifying wolf like beasts leaving her blind from a young age. I find this part of Sosha to be super interesting because it's unusual to have a fantasy heroine and protagonist with a major handicap that neither makes her a lesser person (she has faeries that always aid her) and that despite the existence of magic, she is never cured.

When Sosha's father dies from illness, the village gives her a cruel moratorium: marry a man within 1 week or the village by law will take her land deed away and sell her father's mill to the richest man in town, a man that she detests. Caught in a bind where she knows all too well that no decent man would marry her due to her disfigured face and haughty personality, a strange Elf shows up the door one day with a package and in broken human dialect he wants to marry her! Huh?

Well, not exactly. Toran as the village idiot thinks he said that he has a delivery to make when everyone misinterpreted his poor language skills. He seems so confident in his equivocal proposal that two friendly neighbors have a close talk with both parties. Toran continues to claim that Sosha's father sent him to marry her and they tell Sosha that while he is indeed a strange guy, she can't disparage this unique opportunity to marry a decent guy that seems to genuinely like her as a person. They get married and then two faeries give the great news to Toran. The guy speaks faerish (?) very well and expectedly freaks out.

Fast forward a few months later, Corsyn is off to do an important delivery mumbling insults to himself. Feeling worried about Toran's absence, he visits him and discovers his idiot brother not only married a human miller's daughter, but he seems absurdly happy in his new life in the human village and they are expecting a baby. Now while I loved the entire book, I simply loved Corsyn's scene. He seems like a really awesome guy albeit his appearance is very brief.

The bad guys spot him and after a one sided fight with terrifying flying beasts that wound him and several undead zombies that trap him with powerful magic, he discovers they are going to torture him relentlessly in Moran's castle to extract all of the knowledge he has about the still unborn half-elf of the prophecy. He realizes all hope for him is lost and they will certainly drive him to the verge of insanity but he swore that he will try to protect his foolish brother at all costs.

We don't know what becomes of the unfortunate Corsyn (I hope he reappears in the subsequent series), but the faeries have discovered the undead beasts have located the village and with Sosha in premature labor, the newlyweds will have to make a heart wrenching decision to save their child at all costs.

Beautifully paced and with sufficient exposure that grants us a clear picture of the characters, this book was a thrill to read and I'll definitely read the series sometime.… (mehr)