Monday, March 17, 2014

Book review - The Shadow Prince, a novella by Stacey O'Neale

I received a free ARC of TheShadow Prince, which did not affect my opinion of this novella in any way.

The Shadow Prince is a prequel novella for the author’s upcoming novel, Mortal Enchantment.

First, this isn’t the type of book I normally read, so if there are things I don’t “get” that’s why! I do like some fantasy/paranormals, but with a lot of grounding in our normal world. So for me, The Shadow Prince was a bit too removed. Yes, our world exists, but doesn’t play much of a part in this particular story. I also am not a connoisseur of faerie stories (I know, shoot me!) and because of that, I couldn’t tell if this was truly a faerie world or just used some fae aspects like glamour and allergy to iron. There were also wings and hell hounds and I didn’t know if that fit. So now you know my comfort zone wasn’t here!

But – and this is a big but – I LOVED O’Neale’s characters and that the primary paranormal aspect was Elementals. I love the concept of elementals, either in living, breathing form or in a source of one’s power, which is what drew me to The Shadow Prince in the first place. I was totally pulled in by Rowan’s character – yep, I’d love to have him watching over me at night, or the day! He cares about his people and those who serve the royal court, he’s strong and duh – hot!

The Shadow Prince introduces the reader to how Rowan ultimately (I expect) becomes protector and hopefully much more to Kalin, a young wind elemental whom others fear and want to kill. The novella left me wanting more, fae and all, and concludes with an introduction to Mortal Enchantment, which is written from the POV of Kalin. Given that, I thought it was a great idea to give us more about Rowan in the prequel. And yeah, I wanted to keep reading beyond the excerpt. Now I have to wait until May for that. Thanks a lot. Great job, Ms. O’Neale, it took some good writing to convert me.
 
Four of five stars - go check this one out!

No comments:

Post a Comment