Lord of the Fading Lands by C.L. Wilson

I haven't read fantasy in quite some time. I'm not sure if CS Lewis' Narnia books count (cuz I read those things ad naseum in my childhood) but I think I can safely say that I'm somewhat of a newbie to the genre. Oh yeah, I did the requisite Tolkien read in college mainly because I dated a guy who was obsessed with them and who gave me the entire LOTR boxed set as an X-mas gift. I remember (vaguely) kind of liking the concept of the neat worlds and magical powers and stuff, but missing the romance and lurve action that I really do like to have in my reading diet.

Enter C.L. Wilson. What I quite like about Lord of the Fading Lands is that it feels very much like the fantasy books that I remember reading, but with a good strong thread of romance running through it. Do I dare attempt a summary? There are so many characters, subplots, machinations and whatnot, that I'm not sure it's possible to do it justice.

Rain Tairen Soul is a really old (and yet hot and young-looking) tairen who lost his wife a long time ago in a big epic war against EVIL. (and as we are reminded time and again, that would be Evil with a capital E). Rain is the King of the Fey and the leader of the tairen, otherwise known as the Tairen Soul. His kind, the tairen, seem to be facing extinction because all of the female tairen are barren (oh man, that rhymed and I totally did not intend it). All these years later, he is alerted to the existence of his truemate, who happens to be a young peasant girl. Elysseta or Ellie is the adopted daughter of a woodcarver in the kingdom next door. Her life is turned upside down when Rain literally falls out of the sky and claims her as his mate. Wowza! Before she knows it, this hot masterful king with the kick-ass powers (he can turn into a winged-cat thing and FLY!) has a one-track mind to marry her. Lil' ol' her. She spends the majority of the book protesting that it must be a mistake. She's just a nobody. Not worthy. Etcetera. But of course we readers know better. Ellie has special powers of her own and she's just starting to come into them. Will Rain claim his mate and will she save all of tairen-kind and by extension the entire world? [insert dramatic music]

Well, I don't know because this is a series and apparently book one is more like episode one. There is more to come. And ultimately, that is my whine with the book. I liked the writing. The author has a very strong voice and does a skillful job with building her world. It felt authentic and real and dare I say, epic. BUT at the end of the book, we do not get to see Rain and Ellie together in the truest sense of the word. It is like we get to the end of part 1 of their courtship. You gotta read the next book to find out how/if/when they actually get their mateship on. Arg! I hate cliff-hanger endings. So as a romance novel, this brings the grade down for me. As a fantasy epic, it's probably just par for the course.

That said, I like the book and I will read the next one. Probably pretty soon in fact. I have a soft spot for stoic yet sensitive heros and Rain has that going for him in spades. Yum. And if Ellie doesn't come to her senses and marry him posthaste, I may just beat her to it.

Grade: B

Ride the Fire by Pamela Clare

The year is 1763, and the Ohio Valley frontier is seething with the beginnings of the French and Indian War. Newly widowed and heavily pregnant, young Elspeth Stewart is alone on her homestead when a wounded stranger shows up on her doorstep. Nicholas Kenleigh has been through hell and back. Captured and tortured by Indians, he has survived his ordeal but now lives life without a sense of purpose.

This story has three distinct parts. In the first, we have Nicholas and Elspeth, or Bethie, alone in her cabin cautiously trying to figure out if they can trust one another. Nicholas is wounded and although Bethie nurses him back to health, she sees him as a dangerous man who is not to be trusted. They slowly start to rely upon one another. Bethie goes into labor and Nicholas helps her through the delivery. He teaches her how to read and write. Bonds of friendship and something more begin to form. It's obvious from early on that Bethie has been mistreated by the men in her life, and to Nicholas' credit he can sense this and never pushes her too far.

The second act begins when Nicholas and Bethie are forced to flee her home and make their way through the wild woods to the nearest English fort. Here they end up in the middle of a siege as the fort is quickly surrounded by Indians. Nicholas has leadership experience as well as knowledge of Indian fighting tactics, and he becomes integral to the fight. Bethie is assumed to be his wife, and they live together in order to shield her from the possible negative attentions of the soldiers. Although the situation is dire, it is during this period that Nicholas and Bethie truly begin to explore intimacy. Again, Nicholas is exceptionally tender and understanding and has the patience of a saint. He understands better than Bethie the ramifications of her abusive past and works very hard to awaken her to the possibility of pleasure between them. The fort siege comes to a end, and in the aftermath, Nicholas and Bethie make their way back east.

The third portion of the book begins to feel a bit like an ending gone on too long. Bethie returns to the home and the stepfather who terrified her as a child. She faces her fears and moves on with her life. She and Nicholas then go to Philadelphia where she finds out that the man she's fallen in love with is in fact a rich, titled landowner from Virginia. As the daughter of simple farmers (and Scots-Irish to boot), Bethie faces feelings of inferiority and her martyr complex kicks in. We get a few chapters in which she continues to refuse to marry Nicholas because she thinks he deserves better than her. Although I can understand the sentiment, I have very little patience for martyric heroines and this started to get on my nerves. Thankfully, it doesn't go on too long. After facing down yet another crisis situation with violence from warring frontiersmen, Bethie and Nicholas get their HEA.

There were a lot of things to like about this book. First of all, what a nice change to read a story that isn't set in Regency England. It's refreshing to visit another period of history and this time period lends itself well to romance because of the adventurous and uncertain nature of the era. If you've ever watched and loved Last of the Mohicans, you'll probably enjoy this book. I also really liked the characters of both Nicholas and Bethie. Nicholas was everything I want in a hero. He's strong and capable, yet tender and exceedingly nurturing with Bethie and her little baby. As for Bethie, she is strong enough to have survived some pretty awful things and doesn't spend a great deal of time feeling sorry for herself.

What brings the grade down for me is a combination of a few things. First of all, I felt the ending was a bit too drawn out, as I mentioned above. One too many climactic endings. Bethie's continued refusal to marry Nicholas 'for his own good' hit one of my personal hot buttons. Also, it must be said that the descriptions of torture were really quite graphic; much more than you would expect and in the very first chapter. I got the uncomfortable feeling throughout the book that the Native Americans were brutal savages without being given some context for why they might be doing the things they did. Having lived in a variety of cultures, I'm always sensitive to the idea that people have reasons for their rituals even if they aren't pretty. Describing elaborate scenes of ritualized torture without some kind of explanation gives one the impression that it's just senseless violence for the sake of violence, and I am somewhat doubtful that this was the case. So while I can understand the author being "true to history" (and yes, those were some violent times), I would have liked to have been given more background information to help me process what was going on. I did appreciate that the author tried to include some observations about the white settlers' actions which contributed to the situation, but overall I was left with a somewhat one-sided portrayal.

However, I still very much enjoyed reading this book, and I intend to read more by this author. Readers looking for a combination of action, adventure and satisfying romance should definitely give this one a look.

Grade: B

The Prince by Elizabeth Minogue

I picked this book up on the recommendation of some of my AAR friends. I think it came up during a discussion of pirate romances. Now let me just say that I'm a total sucker for romance on the high seas. I still remember being about nine and watching Errol Flynn swing onto the deck of his ship and fight off the bad guys with his fancy sword work. *sigh* And let's not even start with my eternal crush on Wesley from The Princess Bride.

Lucky for me, my library system happened to have The Prince in their collection (they are SO random about the romance books they have), so I put a hold on it and got it in time to take it with me on a one-week work trip to Canada. Usually, I'm the kind of reader who plows right through a book, averaging about a page or more per minute and finishing it in one sitting. Not so with this book. Partly because of travel and partly because of short attention span, I found that I picked this up and put it down so much that it took me a whole week to finish. In retrospect, I think this is because it took a while for the world the author was creating to make sense to me and become comfortable. But when it did...look out!

The plot, the plot...let's see. In essence, there is a kingdom called Venya which was overthrown by an evil usurper, King Richard. Florian, the rightful prince of said kingdom, has lived in exile since he was a child and has grown up being groomed for a return to his kingdom in which he is expected to be the long-lost saviour and free the land. This is the putative Prince of the title. Then there is our heroine Rose of Valinor who is related to King Richard and who has played a part in the ongoing rebellion in Venya. Rose runs away from Richard and throws herself on the mercy of Florian. She ends up with him and his crew on his ship. And we have the makings of a road romance, or a shipboard romance as the case may be.

Florian is one of the most interesting characters I think I've read in quite some time. He has a lot of layers and they're not all apparent from the outset. He carries a lot of weight on his shoulders, the fate of his country and the destinies of his subjects, and he is both immature in some things and very wise in others. His fame as the Prince of Venya is sung far and wide and he has learned how to keep that mask firmly over his true self. He's absolutely not above manipulating anyone if he feels it will help him in his quest to win back Venya. Florian decides to marry Rose based on how their union will help unite different factions as well as bring more support to his cause. In one passage, he calculates how best to seduce Rose, and I found this passage both really illuminating regarding his internal dialogue with himself as well as really quite funny as it skewers a lot of typical romance hero cliches:

But what was Princess Rosamund's fantasy?
Surely not the bold pirate - always a favorite - who would accept nothing less than complete surrender from his captive. He was glad of that, for it made his head ache to imagine another night of feigned shrieks and faux struggles...Then there was the world-weary rake disarmed by the sweet innocence of the woman in his bed. Many women liked that one. Too many, really; he was bored with it...The callow youth, all wet kisses and eager, fumbling hands? No, at twenty-five, he suspected he'd at last outgrown that role...Yet this was no joking matter. He had no time to waste upon deciding his approach. The thing must be done, and quickly, before she realized what he was about.

Rose is a lot smarter than she's given credit for initially. While she finds herself attracted to Florian, she doesn't fall for his smooth seduction. When she actually does agree to marry him it is because she too wants the return of peace to Venya and not because she believes that they love each other. But something funny happens on the way to the forum, so to speak, and Florian and Rose find themselves drawing increasingly closer together. They learn to see behind each other's masks and to let their guards down. And I found it achingly romantic.

My main complaint with this book has to do with the world-building. It took a little while to build up steam and for the complex mix of countries, ethnicities, loyalties, magic powers, etc. to make any sense to me. I felt a little like I was walking into the middle of something and missing key pieces of information. As much as I like to make fun of glossaries, it actually would have been very helpful to have one. Still, once I got into the story, I found myself really intrigued and eager to know what was going to happen next. Particularly, I liked how trust and intimacy was explored in the relationship between Florian and Rose. I would give this book a solid B, and I'd like to read more by this author.