Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½
“Kiner and I have fought many battles together. All of us knights have seen our closest friends cut down in front of us. Some of us have seen family killed before our eyes. Even the most battle-hardened soldier can lose their minds when the blood flows. Always concentrate on staying alive. Focus on your target. Mourn your friends later. Honor them by staying alive.”
The half-elven Lady Bethany has shattered the glass ceiling for women in the military forces, rising to third in command, a position she has achieved on her own merit. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that she is daughter of the goddess Apaxia, although her ancestry causes as many problems as it solves. This is due partly to some pesky secret prophecies which outline – in typically vague prophetic ways, with references to the “Diamond” and the “Viper” – Bethany’s very important place in future events, and partly her estranged twin sister, Sarissa. For she has turned to the dark side of magic, insanely jealous of her sister’s success, with the emphasis squarely on “insanely” there…
Meanwhile, Bethany feels a strange attraction to one of the new soldiers she is supposed to be training, the human Arrago, who seems to have a role to fulfill in prophecy as well. Yet what will happen when he finds out about Bethany’s divine origins? This makes for a solid enough bit of fantasy, though I am not certain it stands up to scrutiny. For instance, it’s well into the book before we discover Bethany actually had another sister, Drea, one who was not quite so gloriously barking mad. This was a “Wait, what?” moment, and something you think might have been mentioned when discussing her twin.
The other demerit is for Sarissa. Not that she’s a bad villainess. Quite the contrary: she’s so good at being bad, she’s an amazing scene-stealer. I’d rather have read more about her…ah, interesting world-view, rather than the Bethany-Arrago romance, which never manages to be convincing [I’ve always felt any human/elven romance is going to be on shaky ground, due to the difference in lifespans]. At the risk of treading on spoilers, it’s a real shame it turns out Sarissa isn’t quite the big bad she’s initially painted. That’s a pity, and significantly decreases the odds of me going back for subsequent volumes.
What I did like was Bethany’s interactions with colleagues such as fellow lords Jovan and Kiner: there’s a familiarity in these which rings true (and a crudeness to their humour which is not quite what I’ve experienced from fantasy elves). I just wish we’d been given more evidence of the heroine’s skills. It’s well past the half-way point before we see anything more than the literary equivalent of training montages. When they show up, they’re undeniably impressive – even before she has tapped into her full, literally god-given “power” – and I’d love to see a feature version of this, with Gwendoline Christie playing both sisters. But I do have to wonder how the long, red-haired Bethany mutated into the woman shown on the cover…
Author: Krista D. Ball
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as an e-book and a paperback
a.k.a. Tranqulity’s Blaze
Book 1 of 5 in the Tranqulity series.