Made with love
© Victoria Gryson 2024
They handed her a sword and bid her to take a throne…Lorelei is half elf in a kingdom where that bloodline is synonymous with “slave”. The Umbra King holds everyone captive with his pet dragon who knows no mercy. She hides in the shadows and steals to stay alive, until a rebel group gives her an offer she can’t refuse.
The King seeks a bride. If she can get close enough, she could drive a dagger into that wicked man’s heart. But the bridal games are more difficult than most. Lorelei must prove herself not only beautiful, but talented, poised, and deadly as the king. However, the closer she gets to saving her kingdom, the more she realizes a singular problem stands in her way.
The dragon.
The King’s bodyguard is more than a slathering beast. He’s a man. And the longer she’s near him, the more she realizes that perhaps the king isn’t the most dangerous person in the kingdom. Perhaps she had to guard not only her body, but her heart. For a dragon mates for life, and they’re hard pressed to give up their treasures.
ARC – comes out 31st January 2022
I have several of the author’s books, yet strangely enough, this is the first one I’ve actually read. And yeah, I can tell you that the other books are now pretty high on my tbr list 😀 Awesome author!
Worldbuilding in this first book of the series was excellent. Right from the get-go, we get up close and personal with the situation, the different factions and the struggles of the region we’re in. It was only afterwards that I noticed how little we actually knew about the rest of the kingdom or even the world. But it wasn’t necessary at all for the story so far, so you don’t think about it while reading 😀
The scenes and environments were very well written. Just let your mind wander and follow the story 🙂
Lorelei, or Lore to her friends, is a half-elf (it feels she might be one of the few left, actually). Stuck between trying to stay alive (and out of the clutches of the Umbral Knights) and the resistance that wants to recruit her to fight for them as her mother did, you just know she has had a difficult life so far. Aaaaand it’s not going to get any easier.
I like Lore. She has a good head on her shoulder, is compassionate, and is willing to do what is necessary to reach her goal. However, for the sake of her people and her own survival, she goes along with the resistance’s wild plan to try and assassinate the king.
Queue our very unforeseen distraction, Abraxas. The king’s bodyguard and (unknown to many) also the feared and hated dragon. He is the last of his kind and bound to do the king’s bidding.
The dynamic between the two is excellent, though if I had to say something negative, it’s that (without spoiling), Lore has a change of heart pretty quickly (you’ll understand when you get to that part of the book), letting go of years and years of hatred and resentment in a blink of an eye.
But that aside, I really like both of them, and I look forward to reading how they will continue on their journey.
This was good; it felt like the author put in a lot of thought and attention to getting the action and conversation well balanced and keeping the momentum going. Only in the middle did it slow down a bit too much for me, creating a lul. That said, we got to spend more time with Abraxas, so I can’t really complain 😉
The book is well written with no (noticeable) errors. There is no sex described (if that is important to you).
It is 326 pages long, spread over 36 chapters and told from both Lore’s and Abraxas’s point of view.
I voluntarily read an advanced reader copy of this book, and all in all, I really liked it! I mean, yes, there was that middle part being a tad slow, but so so awesome characters! For that alone, I would recommend this one. Add to that the excellent writing et voila, you have a winner 😀 Will look forward to reading the second part!
© Victoria Gryson 2024