Open your eyes to darkness. What do you see? Does the darkness frighten you? Now imagine the darkness being the cargo hold of a slave ship. Your city has fallen. Your family is most likely dead. You don't know anyone around you, and some of them aren't even human. Giving up would be so easy to do, but not for Arowyn Mason. Not after being raised in a military family with seven brothers. Every great story should begin with a plan. Aro's was to escape and to survive.
Escape comes, but at a price. As they reach the shore, Aro and the other survivors learn that freedom doesn't mean safety. The slavers want their property back and will do anything to get it. The party uses every ounce of their brute strength, a hearty helping of cunning, and even ancient magics to keep themselves alive. Sickness, danger, and even love surprise them at every turn. Dealing with danger becomes their way of life, but none of them ever considered that nothing can be quite as dangerous as a prophecy. Running turns into another race altogether as her world falls to pieces again and again.
This book was not what I was expecting at all. The world that Miss Wylie built is amazing; the story takes place in what I want to say is the late 16th, early 17th century. The world still appears large and unexplored to most. Plagues are rampant, transportation for the most part non existent, women were still married off at the ripe age of 14. It is a wholly different world altogether than our modern metropolises; but yet I was still able to relate to it completely. It felt like I was there through the attack on her city, and in the slave ship bound for a strange land she had never been to. I found I could not put this book down, and finished it in a matter of hours. The characters are well written. Aro is a bit on the young side, filled with devastation and yet a hopeful outlook on the future. Her character is on a precarious balance beam, about to topple over, and yet always finds her way back to a level surface. Prince's character is a bit more complex, and I find myself wanting to get inside his head. There are otherworld creatures throughout this book, but they do not take precedence to the actual story line. I knew that there would be a twist near the end, and there definitely was. I was waiting for it, yet was not able to fully predict what it would be. I truly did enjoy this story, and look forward to reading the next one in the Broken Ones Series!
"A little gasp escaped her lips before she clamped them shut. He was beautiful. She shouldn't have been surprised. He was a prince after all. Weren't they all handsome? She took in his long black hair, fine and straight. Hers had never looked so nice. His skin was fair, except for a purpled bruise high on his left cheek and curling over his temple. His features were angular, but somehow slightly soft, too. Gentle. His nose was impossibly straight and his eyes... his eyes were glaring at her. She looked away quickly. 'Are you quite done?' She looked at him again because she hadn't finished. She'd only noticed his too long dark lashes and fine sweeping dark brows before his glare had scared her. She wanted to finish the picture and see what color his eyes were. They were blue, of course. Perfect brilliant blue. They were also glaring again."
Connect with Jen Wylie: JenWylie.com; Twitter; Goodreads; Smashwords; Amazon.
Tags: Broken Ones Series, Broken Aro, Jen Wylie, paranormal, book reviews, urban fantasy, dystopian, book review.
No comments:
Post a Comment