Review: What a fantastic story!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2014
Wow! What a great story! I’ll start by saying I used to read a lot of fantasy, prior to discovering gay romance, but I’ve not read much in years. A book here and there, but really not much. I was asked to review this book, and decided to give it a try, thinking it would be yet another fantasy, elves, forest, magic,blah, blah, blah. But it’s not like what I expected at all!Here’s the details: Kelnaht is a truth seeker, which appears to be an elf police officer. He and his apprentice Brem, are investigating the murder of a female elf named Cyine. They use a combination of visual investigation and magical investigation techniques to check out the scene and eventually the body. The murder has taken place near the home of the Forester, an elf who has been a shunned by the community of elves, and no one is allowed to speak to him. Kelnaht realizes this will be a difficult issue to deal with, not being able to question a suspect, who has immediately been accused by the community it members. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that Kelnaht has been attracted to the reclusive elf for years. In to the story comes Ianys, Kelnaht’s former lover, who it appears has been having a relationship with the shunned Forester. Kelnaht and the Guide are called before the council and given permission to speak to the Forester one time to ascertain whether he was involved in the murder or not. That is the basic set up of the story, I’ll stop here so I don’t give more away!What follows is a very detailed story for being a short story. The world is very interesting, certainly magical, but there isn’t a medieval feeling to it like you get with a lot of fantasy. The mystery felt contemporary, why it happened and how, but the detective work was magical. These Elves live in the woods, in trees I think, but Kelnaht runs upstairs to take a shower at one point. That’s cool! I wanted to know a bit more about there dwellings and settlement actually… Very interesting characters, the main ones but also the others. The Guide, Brem, Olden, the council all added to the story and community.There is some sex in this, not very graphic, but it worked very well with the story. I liked a couple of things particularly; Kelnaht has wings, so his walk of shame one morning is a flight of shame! He is appreciative of the fact that he can fly to his bedroom balcony and doesn’t have to go through the door. The other thing I’d like to mention is he DOES have wings! They are there and acknowledged. He has to settle his cloak to accommodate his wings. His tunic is removed, over his wings. When he is held by another person, his wings are taken in to account. I loved that. I’ve read about winged beings before that don’t really deal with how you would live, or specifically go to bed with someone with big wings on their back! The author addresses this and it worked very well.I enjoyed this book very much, I’ve seen Blaine’s name around, but haven’t read any of her books. It was wonderfully creative, with great characters, and a deep plot. Not at all what I expected for a fantasy book. My only complaint is I wish there were more details about the community and housing situation, I couldn’t quite get a grasp on how these elves live. But that is so minor, it did not at all detract from the story. I just had a few moments of curiosity. I’m off to read the next in the series, I see it is a much longer book. Maybe I’ll get my questions answered!A copy of this book was provided for reviewing. The original review posted at  [...]