Irene Radford

This book was going pretty well. I feel like it would have been very appropriate YA. That is until the threesome happened. I had to read it a couple times because it was a bit ambiguous, but I am pretty sure it happened, even though it makes no sense. For context this book is romantic fantasy, and has all the requisite tropes with this one notable exception. The author decides to go for a love triangle. Ok. the first problem is that one of the people in the love triangle has been a wolf for a while. I'll buy that the person who was previously transformed into a wolf(Roy) thinks he is in love with the women who took care of him in his wolf form. However, there is little indication that the main female character (Brevelan) loves this guy in the romantic sense because it did not have time to develop. After the threesome happens, boom! She loves both characters equally, and she just. can't. choose. She should love Roy like how you would love your dog because that is the relationship they had. Meanwhile, Brevelan and Jaylor's relationship is more developed because Jaylor wasn't a dog for most of it. Not to mention the fact that their love is prophesied/ given the stamp of approval by the resident dragon. This isn't an equilateral triangle so much as it is scalene. So Jaylor and Roy are friends, they are not attracted to each other romantically, but they both want to bang the same girl, fine. My issue is that Roy took advantage of the situation because Jaylor was off doing a magic thing, Jaylor wakes up, and threesome ensues. It just didn't feel in character for Jaylor not to get jealous or hurt that Roy decided to have sex with Brevelan while he was ostensibly in a coma/dying. It doesn't make sense that Brevelan doesn't feel guilty or something for going to another man for comfort while the man she is in love with is in a magic coma.The conflict was circumvented because the author split the baby in half. This threesome is meant to make the situation all hunky dory so that the quest can occur with less infighting, but at the end Brevelan clearly chooses Jaylor while telling Roy she loves him; it is a deus ex machina. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't set up a love triangle without the inevitable conflict that should occur as a result of the love triangle. That is the whole point of a love triangle from a narrative utility standpoint. This could have easily been fixed if the pacing was better so that characters could develop more, or if there were some sort of indication that Jaylor and Roy also had romantic feelings towards each other as well as Brevelan, making it a polyamorous relationship.… (mer)

Received as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer's April 2012 batch, to mark this book being released as an ebook. There's the odd markup issue where some of the text continues on as italics where perhaps it should be standard text. Nothing that spoiled the reading of the book (it took me a while to work around what was "wrong") but it happened more than once.

Fourth in the series, this picks up 13 years after the previous book. Griffin's daughter has grown up with her cousins and her Uncle Donovan. Elizabeth is still on the throne, and Donovan still has a passing love for Mary, Queen of Scots.

Elizabeth is being threatened by the Pope, and Philip of Spain. Closer to home, both she and the Pendragons are being threatened by Werewolves, with one of their own being turned.

Didnt enjoy this quite as much as the previous books that I've read in this series. There's a slight change in pace and format, where years go by in between chapters, people are doing things you werent quite expecting in places you werent expecting it (e.g. Hal running around half of Europe and popping up in Paris and other places - did make me wonder whether I'd missed something or chapters had been cut from either the ebook or the original). Hal's relationship with Henri III was overplayed or his friendship with Henri IV was underplayed - I haven't decided which.

On the whole an enjoyable book, though I'm not sure it's the strongest in the series… (mer)

Third in the "Descendants of Merlin" series, the second that I've read, again receiving the ebook as part of Librarything's Early Reviewers.

Times have progressed and England is ruled by the Catholic Mary and then the Protestant Elizabeth. There is a risk of both civil war and war with France (and Spain) as the Catholic and Protestant faiths do battle over much of Europe. Political alliances, and dictates from the Church in Rome keeps everything fluid and unstable.

Griffin and Donovan, identical twins brought up in the tradition of the Pendragon take different paths in life and are separated for many years through distrust.

Once again the stability of Britain is at stake and it takes both brothers to join forces against the Demon of Chaos, who is trying to break free from his prison in order to wreak havoc upon the world.

Not quite as strong as the first book but still s reasonable and enjoyable read… (mer)

Received as an ebook as part of the January 2012 batch of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers. With the book originally published in 2000, I suspect that this edition was to mark the publication as an ebook. The epub edition I was given translated fine onto a Kobo (my ereader of choice).

This story is a take on the Arthurian legend, from the standpoint of Merlin's daughter Wren. Merlin is a Druid, who has brought up Arthur to be a warrior king and take his rightful place as High King when his father - Uther - dies.

Wren is a priestess of the old religion - the Christians beginning to make a mark on the country. It is her role to keep a balance in the world, between good and evil, the darkness and the light. She doesnt always do this well, and has to suffer the consequences.

This is not a book for the prudish - there's plenty of explicit sex, including those of an incestual nature, and not for those who dont like magic as the latter is one of the driving forces of the book.


Found it to be a fairly strong book (if a little long). It's the first of a series and whilst the majority of the major characters in this book were dead by the end (spoiler alert!) there's plenty of room for the sequels


… (mer)