Review: Warlord's Honor is Great Read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 12, 2014
This is the debut novel in a new series - Krystile Warriors - by L.W. Browning, and I can't wait to get my hands on the next book!Seriously, if no one had told me that this was Browning's first venture into SF/fantasy fiction, I wouldn't have guessed it. The writing is gripping, compelling, page-turning. This is a can't-put-down book, one of those occasions where I had to stop (frequently) and remind myself I was reading it for a review! It's that good. I ceased to be a reviewer and simply became a reader, letting myself be pulled along by the story.It's quite a story, too! Claire – an MX, which stands for eMpath with eXtra abilities – is purchased by Koda, the title warlord. Claire belongs to an elite class of women, empaths whose abilities to “read” other people makes them invaluable to the Conglomeration, an organization that seeks domination over other societies through trade.The abilities of Claire and the other women also make them feared, so feared that they are now marked for death by the people who have groomed and developed them. Claire doesn't know she and the other women are doomed. She doesn't know that Koda wants to save her and the other women. She doesn't know there is a prophesy regarding the eMpaths and Koda's people.The author weaves Claire, Koda and the plot into a wonderful dance of complexities, lies, deceptions, romantic entanglement, and discoveries. She does it with a deft hand and an excellent eye for human – and nonhuman – nature. The romance, and romantic tension, between her two main characters is beautifully and, in my humble opinion, realistically done. On the SF/fantasy side, Browning achieves that sense of wonder that is vital to the genre.And it's all grounded in enough reality to make it totally believable.One small caveat – This book contains explicit sex and some vioIence. If you're not comfortable with that, it probably isn't the book for you. It's definitely for mature readers. But for those who enjoy well-written SF/fantasy and/or romance, it merits a solid 5 Stars.