Born of Legend
By Sherrilyn Kenyon
The League #9

Everyone just thought of Jullien eton Anatole as a fat spoiled royal jerk but there is always another story behind what people think they know and see. Anyone who reads this series runs into Jullien throughout the series. He is always high and quite the asshole but in a previous book, we know he saved the families of most of the heroes of the series from being bombed. It was a total shocker and it let us know that there was much more to Jullien than we knew.

This book spans over many years and we see events that coincide with other events in the previous books of the series. The series isn’t always written in chronological order because the events occur over many years and a lot of the events happen concurrently. It gets really confusing and I found myself wishing I had re-read the series before I started this book because I had forgotten so much yet kept remembering events as they transpired but since I saw them from another angle and from another character’s viewpoint from a previous book, it gave me a whole other perspective. Wow! That was a really long run-on sentence and I’m not sure I got my point across exactly as I wanted to but it’ll do.

I absolutely fell in love with Jullien, not because of his tortured childhood and past…or maybe because of it but because of his dark and sarcastic humor, his perseverance and his soft heart towards children. He was shown no love when he was a child yet he was patient and loving toward children. It’s how the book began. He was in a seedy bar on some planet, dying from a poisonous stab wound, when he saw slavers trying to buy a teenage Andarian boy who had spunk and was fighting them all the way. While the other patrons just ignored it, he couldn’t let the slavers take the kid so he decided to use his last strength to free him. The teenager’s mom, Ushara, showed up with her pirate crew and kicked butt and saved Jullien too.

Jullien had a rough life….no that is too soft of a word for it but I can’t think of a word that encompasses the horror that was his life that made me want to cry, vomit and commit murder. His grandmother was an evil power-hungry bitch who made his life miserable but she wasn’t the only one. His own mother wouldn’t even suckle him because she thought he was some reincarnation of her brother come back to haunt her yet she doted on his fraternal twin. A maid found him almost dead in his crib from starvation. After all, he was just the second born twin…a spare part to be ignored or used however anyone wanted for political gain.

After his brother was killed when they were just five or six, he became a target for his grandmother’s rage, ignored by his mother, and used by his cousins. He was teased and berated relentlessly because he was half human and half Andarian. His father’s family despised him because he was Andarian and had fangs while his Andarian family criticized him because of his human side. His grandmother, the ruler of Andaria, told him she killed his brother and she’d kill him if he said anything or angered her in any way. I mean, who tells a child that? Well, I guess someone who would kill a child would say that. Because his Aunt Parisa was involved in the murder of his twin, she and her sons became paranoid that Jullien would say something so they started drugging him. He turned to food for comfort and became overweight which just made him more of a target for everyone’s cruelty, including the media.

Those are some of the milder things that happened to him. His grandmother had a secret prison under the prison where she liked to toss him when she thought he embarrassed her or was becoming unruly. The other prisoners did not take too kindly to a noble being there and you can just guess at the other horrors that happen to a young boy in prison.

It’s a wonder he turned out sane at all or not become a psycho. Jullien did do some awful things himself because of his drugged out state and because he was treated so horribly but he felt guilty from those actions believed he was not worthy of anyone’s love. When he met Ushara, he learned he could be loved but that brought along its own troubles. Now, he had a million enemies and something to lose.

This was an extremely long book and, at times, I thought it was getting tedious with too much emphasis on things that I thought weren’t really relevant to the storyline but I know I should trust Sherrilyn Kenyon because she always has a reason for what she includes in her writing. It may not be significant in this book but it will definitely be relevant to a future book. There was a lot in this book about Trajen Thaumarturgus, Thraix Sparda, Bastien Cabarro, Jupiter Hinto and Chayden Aniwaya so any of these hotties might get their own book. I can’t wait to find out.

www.paranormalromanceslut.com
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Listened to audio narrated well by Fred Berman. So hard to believe I can actually like Julienn after all he's done. This is a huge read, covering a lot of time and spanning over several of the previous books. After saving her son from slavers as he was dying from a knife wound Ushara is drawn to Julienn. He's a danger to her clan and family but they make a great couple. Julienn finally finds family and friends who care about him and support him. Made me want to reread the series, knowing Julienn's PoV. Did not want to put it down. Lots of action and intrigue, heartbreaking tragedies overcoming extreme odds and prejudices. Seeing Julienn's point of view for his horrible actions against the characters from previous book highlights the point that peoples actions viewed through a different lens can change understanding.
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-- check out full review over at LittleBookishInkblots.blogspot.com --

Let me tell you up front that this book was good, and I liked it, but it was looooooong. It took me a week to finish despite listening every day for about 6-7hours. Actually, I would have given it 5 stars if not for some things like Length and Storyline repetitiveness.

Anyone who has had a chance to talk to me knows that I love audiobooks. For this particular series, Fred Berman does the narration, and he is just awesome! Oh, he also plays TIMON on The Lion King on Broadway. I only noticed that because when we watched the play for our anniversary, I saw his name on the playbill it kind of 'sounded' familiar. When I read that his artist description included audiobooks, I hurriedly checked my current read, and ohmygosh, YES! That's HIM! Squeeee!!!

Now you'd think a good narrator plus a bangin' SciFi-Fantasy-Romance series would be a perfect match -- weeeellll.. it would. Except I had too many flashbacks to a novel done by the same author but just set in a different universe and time era.

But, like I said, I did enjoy the book, despite its length. I was excited to read Dagger's story since it provides a different point of view on the storyline at the end of Born of Betrayal which was quite well done. I loved Dagger's acerbic wit and his sarcastic retorts, Ushara's determination and Trajan and Nero's kindness despite their tough exteriors. It does my heart good to see brotherly love and understanding given to Dagger when at the start it was so cruelly denied him.

I found myself actually empathizing with the characters. I felt Dagger's frustration, laughed at his jokes and sarcastic barbs, growled with irritation at some of the other characters short-sightedness and close-mindedness. In a way, this book is timely since it speaks to the reader about being accepting of and open to differences. Despite being set in an imaginary futuristic world, with the characters being a hodgepodge of difference races, cultures, and genetic make-up, it resonates with me, especially because of the current happenings in the real world.

Born of Legend parallels to the stories of the first 3 books, the events in the books happen mostly at the same time as certain Important Events. Here we meet Fain & Venneck, Talyn Batur, and of course, Nyk and Kiara, Darling Cruel, Rin Dane, and other League favorite. I like how it filled in little-known gaps in the series leading me to go "Oh.. So that's what happened.." several times over.

For newcomers to the series, I suggest reading the League books in chronological order to help give you a better appreciation of this particular novel. Though all the books can be read as a stand-alone, it's better done in a manner allowing the story to grow and develop as it was meant to.

The love story element is present, and as all romance novels go, the relationship develops almost instantaneously. They go from being strangers to lovers in a chapter and a half. That being said, I'm almost thankful that this book isn't much of a bodice ripper since that would be a little awkward while on an audiobook. LOL

All in all, it was a fun read, the narrator had a good range of voices, the storyline felt cohesive with her other books in the series, and it did not feel like a filler book -- in fact, it felt like one of those "I need to explain what the heck is going on here on the other side" book. I would have given it 5 SQUEEES but again -- length and repetitiveness.

If I wasn’t reading DarkHunters and The League at the same time I would probably not mind at all.

I do hope Sherri continues on with stories for now and looking forward to hearing about the (mis)adventures of the second generation of League characters.

XOXO,
Angelica ( )

hb