Review: The Fire Lord's Lover

The Fire Lord's Lover (Elven Lords series - Book 1) by Kathryne Kennedy

(For review from Sourcebooks)

Synopsis:

If his powers are discovered, his father will destroy him...

In a magical land ruled by ruthless Elven lords, the Fire Lord's son Dominic Raikes plays a deadly game to conceal his growing might from his malevolent father-until his arranged bride awakens in him passions he thought he had buried forever...

Unless his fiancée kills him first...

Lady Cassandra has been raised in outward purity and innocence, while secretly being trained as an assassin. Her mission is to bring down the Elven Lord and his champion son. But when she gets to court she discovers that nothing is what it seems, least of all the man she married...

Then Dominic and Cassandra together uncover an unspeakable evil, one that threatens the destruction of the magical realm they would give their souls to save...

Thoughts:

The Fire Lord's Lover is a great combination of Historical Fiction, Romance and Fantasy. This was easily one of my favorite books of the year! Kathryne Kennedy does a spectacular job of building a world where historical characters exist as well as fantastical dragons and Elven Lords. Her attention to detail really gives this novel an edge. The reader can easily visualize the flames on Firehame castle, the splendor of the Elven garden and even the dungeon cell, where Cassandra was held captive.

Lady Cassandra's character was very interesting to me. She was raised in obscurity, in a religious environment, yet all the while she was being trained as an assassin. She was a strong character who felt she had a duty her people. She was willing to give her own life for the cause of removing the Elven Lord from power. But, she was also vulnerable to the same things that each of us are; fear, hate, love, compassion and so many other emotions. One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was the character development. Cassandra became more real as the story progressed.

Dominic was a character that I really felt for. He had a very demanding father, who was almost brutal in his attentions to him. Mordred didn't do those things out of love, he was constantly trying to figure out if Dominic had the power to overthrow him. He even resorted to the death of those closest to Dominic including his pet to prove his points. So Dominic was a very guarded character. He was constantly making sure that his real emotions were never visible to his father in order to assure the safety of those he cared about. But, he never truly understood caring for someone until Casandra came into his life. Then he blossoms into a dark hero!

One of the best parts of this novel was finding out each person's gifts. The gifts of fire, finding and the gift of dance were all so important to the story. I truly enjoyed this book and cannot wait until the second book in the series comes out. I am giving away two copies of the book, check my sidebar for details.

I give this one 5 out of 5 apples from my book bag!