Photo credits: Prawny (pixabay), Yuri B (pixabay) Edited by Vaishali Title: Dark King Author: C.N. Crawford Series: Court of the Sea Fae Publisher: Self published Year of Publication: 2019 Format: EBOOK copy Genre/Themes: Adult Fantasy, Fantasy Romance, urban fantasy, romance, Fae, Magic, Paranormal Romance Review...
Dark King by C.N. Crawford is a story that trails the history (and mystery) of a drowned kingdom, a fearsome demi god In pursuit of a powerful Fae relic, a mysterious arsonist and destroyer of lands, a disgraced heiress of the sea lynched of the roiling power that once had her an empress of those wild waves and a string of Fae supernaturals who all have something to gain. Or destroy? I had a reading friend with a particular fascination for the C.N. Crawford partnership, and after starting with the opener to the Court of the Sea Fae series I can see why. The authorship promises a geyser of great potential, and in spite of possibilities unrealised, I had a lot of fun reading this. Dark King was very readable, not flawless, well-purposed or actuated in an always well-materialised or even established way, but a gripping introduction to their style of supernatural romantic literature for me. Simplicity meets the supernatural, and I can't wait to see what else pours forth from their well of the imaginal. I know I could quite easily sink my way through their published books with the ease of swift comfort and without an ounce of reluctance or pause on my part. The Fae just seem to do it for me. They always have. And C.N. Crawford just served up a complimentary ambiance of surrounding temptations to anchor these paranormal creatures of magic, influence and seductive supremacy. Here, the sea Fae assume leadership. For the most part Dark King is very actionable, the plot pursuits push at the characters from the start, and it only moves forward with reciprocating suspense, levity and action. What succeeded in action and plot didn't always equate to other elemental areas of progression or resonating relationships I will say. There was a great feel of intrigue, interest and creativity but unsupported by that which was left untouched. There was a sense of absence within the story that didn't meet a fuller possibility. What it did do from the very beginning, with interesting world building, character construction, a unique setting, a strongly introduced heroine with a fun, comical (but equally resilient) spirit was push me with invisible hands to stay the lane. I'm glad I did, because even with some shortcomings, I was compelled enough to purchase the follow up immediately. I really can't wait to see how the second installment takes the lead for more than just a few reasons. One of them being an unexpected twist of a potential anti-hero who may have just unwittingly reordered and reshuffled this deck from a sea Fae twosome to a maybe love triangle. Did I just say love triangle? I think I did. And I'm very excited about it. Our mysterious third wheel is the ambrosial forbidden fruit, and I've decided I might just like to plant a tree in his honour to grow more of said fruit in abundance. Where there's intense plot movement, there's always a lighter humour that swiftly appraises the heat of the danger by engaging itself with an entertaining levity by way of Aenor's narration. There's strife, struggle and complication aplenty, and yet Aenor take it in stride with the bearing of someone who knows how to lighten the load despite the troubling pressure and inner distraction. It breaks up the regret of all that's lost of her golden years, all she could gain by possibility, the present threat of being acquired by the very powers of paranormal authority she's been outrunning and unwillingly pairing up with a powerful demi god to keep her human friend and companion safe. The characterisation was equally interesting, if a bit formless and flat, but that sense of speculation does lend itself to a suspicious sense of the indefinite. Aenor's characterisation was more abtruse than clear; my brain wasn't always quite sure how to perceive her or her motivations. Or whether I was even supposed to. Nonetheless, she remained an interesting heroine to me; dynamic, independent, well-placed, survivalistic leading lady with a taste for Elvis and his musical magic. Doing her best to hold her ex-royal head high while nesting in her underground hidey hole. And does she do so with spunk, spirit and the quiet echo of a once-loved life behind her. Providing a rogue, self-sanctioning service for victimised women, and after being violently attacked herself, she has few qualms over dispatching the wicked. After shallowly escaping her destroyed kingdom without her powers intact she's been drifting through human lands for as long as she can remember, doing what she could to adapt and survive from era to era, befriending human women and taking vigilantism upon herself to safeguard them from the horrors they were unable to protect themselves from. But she's an illegal supernatural, ripe pickings for being hunted by fae enforcers. While it's a good thing her underwater abode at least houses her struggling business, her sorry state of a livelihood becomes tarnished beyond livability when her life (and her humble underground living) becomes the target of a foreboding creature she killed with a hard iron bullet to the heart. He's back, filled with wrath, darkness and fury, and he's offering her few choices but to help him secure an item of power that could save his people. As if Aenor wasn't a struggling immortal before, she has some major problems on her sea Fae hands now. Where Aenor's relationship with her people and kingdom held a searching dialogue in the story, I didn't feel any real sense of discovery on that front. I can only hope that we get some intervention between her and the people of Nova Ys considering her damaged reputation and an entire community of Fae who believed the worst in her. That doesn't seem an easy feat to manoeuvre. I did appreciate the Aenor's hyperbolic villain story. Among the Fae, and very unfortunately for Aenor, a seductively rewilded lie has sown an entire culture of Fae in the grip of a grape-vine invented fable. Word is considered truth that she destroyed her own kingdom and carelessly turned her back on her own people on the demand of a previous lover. As bewildered as she was to find out that lie dressed as common belief, she doesn't have a great deal faith in the opposite sex to begin with thanks to a mother who schooled her in the ways of male manipulation and monstrosity. As such, our Aenor lives a life of celibacy, trusting nobody but herself. While I appreciated the commentary of male bavardage often usurping the authenticity of a woman's story - even rewriting and retelling it to sheer proportions of scandal - I did struggle with Aenor's personal perspective on male hate. And comparably, her impossibly quick transit as an immortal of lifelong sexual abstinence to burning with immediate lust for Lyr a tad too swift to challenge that long-lived way of being. As much as a story can play agreeable to the role of female empowerment one also has to consider the other extreme of immortal celibacy and male discrimination as a result of that. A glorious male can of course turn a head and rally those hormones but that particular response posed an unrealistic challenge to her characterisation. Her mother of course nursed the belief by nurturing within her a deep sense of dubiety and suspicion. But as we later learn, said mother's sense of normalcy is a deeply questionable thing in and of itself. Poor Aenor. I'm not a foreigner to the urges of fictional carnality, but I digress that the representation sat in conflict with who we believe Aenor to be. She was interestingly and agreeably morally gray however. Power hungry in the way she thirsted for the return of her sea magic, in a temperament which often left me questioning her truest desires and a possible darker shade to her character. Where many play haste to the martyrdom of the female role, I liked the experiential mix of a self-serving heroine, self realised in her secret desire for power but also quick to dole out her own sense of justice. I didn't anticipate her to desire Lyr's trust as quickly as she did and would have liked to see a more believable sense of resistance from her, but I still enjoyed her perspective as the story's heroine. The romance did feel more lust laden than it did progressive but the steam never failed to ripen the story and eroticise the budding companionship between Aenor and Lyr, even as they're not fully convinced of each other. And even as I'm not fully convinced of them. Our male love interest was equally a source of intrigue but perhaps not as interesting as I was hoping he'd be, and even after completing the book I'm still unsure of him. Godlike in presence, faithful in duty but also irresolutely questionable. The dubious Lyr, enemy or ally? There's a rather large question mark there despite his romantic partnership with Aenor. Is Lyr really the loyal protector to the house of Meriadoc's true heir? What's so arousingly suspicious about that major sense of the divine within him that encourages mistrust? I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what becomes of this cursed and curious demigod. He is darkly compelling and beautifically divine in appearance and essence, so there is that. But after the welcome of The Evening Star I'm suspecting the representation of Lyr and Aenor's romance may have been deliberate. There's just something about the setting of modernity as it melds with ethereally long lived creatures that I enjoy. There was a nice side-by-side between Aenor's life and the indulgent realm of the fae. Aenor's thirst for her power also pulled our heroine into the line of questioning so we'll see what transpires with her quest to re-inherit those aquiline gifts. Where this book opens up with Aenor so removed from her place of royalty and yet longing for what she once had, I'm hoping the story has an interesting way of moving forward with it and her place as a woman of power. Considering she found her name to be as soiled as the sewer-drenched undergarments she finds herself in as she's towed along as captive, I'm intrigued to know how the authors might reintroduce her as an heir with the inhabitants of Nova Ys. A vengeful prophecy, reluctant co-cooperators, a fallen princess, a cursed (and resurrected) Fae warrior, veiled motives, a Fae-crafted relic and a quest to re-establish power. Personally, I did feel that the story didn't make the most of its potential in a few different ways with this one but I was still engaged with every part of the story. Aenor is no longer the daughter of a queen with a great power that calls to the wild waters. She's powerless, and her most recent and pressing situation reminds her of the fullness of a Fae with imperial power in her blood. Going into this I had zero expectations for a love triangle, my thoughts prowled along the lines of boy hunts girl, girl shoots boy, boy hunts her again, they hate each other but must work in resistant partnership, she mentally plans various attempts at death and they become mistrustful companions to very willing bedmates. That is, until a second foreboding interest entered the fray and I found myself deeply intrigued by the curious welcome. The Nameless One really gave this book an edge. After scanning the blurb for Fallen King I'm more than just a bit excited by the fact that while Dark King is single POV, in its sequel, Aenor shares the telling with none other than Salem. I'm already impatient for this coming dual perspective! I gave this book 3.5/4 stars -Content Warning/Listing: violence, blood, death/threats of each one. Mentions past instances of violence and assault (including an act of violence against the heroine resulting in permanent scarring). Also mentions and exposes violence and crimes against women (including an attempted on page rape via non-pivotal side characters). Female on female hate. ___________________________ M Y R A T I N G S Y S T E M: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read ___________________________ ______________________________ R E L A T E D P O S T S: ● BOOK REVIEW: Fallen King by C.N. Crawford ______________________________ SOME FAVOURITE QUOTES! I stared at the stranger, who moved toward me with an elegant grace. His beauty felt like glass shattering in my heart. Dark hair swept over his forehead, and the morning light blazed over his face. His eyes were dusky hues—purple streaked with gold—and his cheekbones were blade-sharp. Possibly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I realized I’d simply stopped walking. “I believe those two fae were bothering you,” he said. “I had to kill them.” “Thanks,” I said. I still clutched tight to the bloodied knife. His eyes gleamed, and he arched a dark eyebrow. “You look like your mother.” My stomach swooped. He knew way too much about me. “Who are you?” As I stared at him, the sound of a low drum pulsed in time with my heart. It seemed to me that it was a sacrificial drum, a sound echoing off rock. I had no idea why that word popped into my mind—sacrifice. I felt dreadfully hot, and phantom flames seemed to rise and burn around me. Boom, boom, boom…. A drumbeat to drown out screams. However gorgeous the man standing before me was, the drum was telling me to run “But my mother killed him instead. She cut his heart out with a dagger and left it on the banquet table, where it dried out. She left his bones there as well. She took his crown, his armies, and ruled Ys. She presided over the golden age of Ys—the best art, the most prosperity. And she never took off her wedding dress, stained with his blood. “I don’t get along with men, and I never have,” I said. “I don’t get jealous of other women’s beauty. And I definitely didn’t drown a kingdom because I was jealous. Was this story told to you by a man, by any chance? This sounds like a dude story. The girl who was sooo slutty she broke the whole world.” I breathed in slowly through my nose. “And this all brings me back to my previous point. I don’t get along with men.” I stared out the window, where the dark sea crashed against a rocky shore. Right now, I wanted to leap into it. It seemed impossible to clear my name. This was the thing with men, as my mother—Queen Malgven herself—had warned me. It didn’t matter who you really were; they wrote their own stories about you. They cast you in one of several roles: the innocent girl who needed teaching, the lunatic who needed calming, the whore who’d break your heart. Or, in my case, the demonic prostitute fueled by rage and jealousy. A fallen woman. That was my story, whether or not it was true. And as Gwydion had said, wasn’t it a good story? But why should I care what they thought? I knew the truth. Gina knew the truth. I stared at the stranger, who moved toward me with an elegant grace. His beauty felt like glass shattering in my heart. Dark hair swept over his forehead, and the morning light blazed over his face. His eyes were dusky hues—purple streaked with gold—and his cheekbones were blade-sharp. Possibly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I realized I’d simply stopped walking...As I stared at him, the sound of a low drum pulsed in time with my heart. It seemed to me that it was a sacrificial drum, a sound echoing off rock. I had no idea why that word popped into my mind—sacrifice. I felt dreadfully hot, and phantom flames seemed to rise and burn around me. Boom, boom, boom…. A drumbeat to drown out screams. However gorgeous the man standing before me was, the drum was telling me to run. When the song on the radio changed, I felt like the gods were blessing me. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” began playing. “Can you turn this up?” “This music is terrible.” I popped a bubble. “You shut your godsdamn mouth, or so help me Elvis, I will shoot you again with iron bullets.” “You like this?” “Elvis is the god of music.” “El-vis.” He said the name like he’d never heard it before. “I haven’t heard of this god.” “I touched his shirt once.” I giggled, then focused on the road again. “You should probably stop distracting me while I’m driving.” I glanced at him quickly out of the corner of my eye and saw a smile curling the corner of his lips. “I thought you hated men.” “Not all men. There are exceptions. Elvis being one of them. And the Horseman of Death is nicer than you’d imagine, given his title.” “Is that right?” I stared at her. “I don’t understand why you’d betray everyone here for the crown of an island you’ve never even been to. What’s the point?” Now, for the first time, her eyes sharpened, and she was staring at me like a bird of prey. “What’s the point? Have you not noticed how they operate here? They eat before us, the council of three. Three males, making all the decisions. I follow orders. I’m good enough to fuck, but not good enough to consult on decisions. Not good enough to trust with all the secrets they keep among themselves. “Once, women ruled the fae world. We were treated like goddesses. Your mother brought all that back. A true fae queen, just like the old days. And I was going to be her successor, reviving the old House of Marc’h, ruled by women centuries ago. All I wanted was the power I deserved.” I felt strangely sad for her. “It didn’t really work out, did it?” Her gaze went unfocused again. “I can smell Lyr on you. Don’t think for a second he’ll treat you as an equal. When you’re drinking that dandelion wine up there in his room, don’t think you’ll be any different.” He kept his eyes locked on mine. “How did you get those scars?” “It was a long time ago.” “But how did you get them?” I sat up straighter in the bath. “It was in London, not that long before you saw me ripping out Sam’s heart. I was walking when someone slammed a glass bottle over my head from behind. Another demon bit my neck. They said they hated fae, and women. They beat me unconscious and left me for dead. I woke up with the scars. Demons can be jerks, you know?” “How do I find them?” Lyr barked. I blinked at him. Was he … was he offering to avenge me? How gentlemanly and old fashioned. “No, deathling,” I said. “I’m not waiting for you to avenge me. I already killed them a long time ago.” “I hope you ripped out their ribs from their backs." When I turned around, I saw him, and my heart skipped a beat. There he was, towering over me. The second fae. He glowed with the cold, unearthly light of an angelic king. His beauty was devastating. Unfortunately for me, he did not look the least bit enchanted. In fact, he looked like he wanted to rip my head off. I pointed at the scrying mirror. “Look at that sign. Do you see it? Not only is he threatening to kill me in a painful manner, but he did a weird thing with capitalizing all the words. That alone tells me he’s the worst sort of psychopath.” “I made you coffee.” He pointed to a mug on the bed next to me. “You seemed keen on it earlier.” I raised my eyebrows. “You know how to make coffee?” He glared at me with the offense of someone who was just asked if he knew how to read. “Coffee is a Ysian delicacy. Its ancient traditions were passed down to me by the finest coffee makers. Also, I found Nescafé.” I stared at it in his palm, entranced. I wanted to snatch it up in my hands. “What is it?” “A gem that once belonged to my mum’s family. Beira said it would stop you when you try to take my head off.” I arched my eyebrow. “If I’m such an evil threat, then why are you telling me how I can be stopped? I could just steal that from you and I’d be unstoppable.” He shrugged. “Two reasons. One, I can overpower you easily even without a magic gem, and two, maybe I like the thought of you crawling all over me and frantically trying to get into my trousers.” I rolled my eyes, but my cheeks heated, too. She belonged here, among the fae, wielding power like she was born to it. For one painful moment, I felt envy so deep it seemed my heart was splitting in two. I didn’t envy beauty, but I did envy power. Salem’s attention was rapt on me. I didn’t know why, but it made me feel like the center of the universe. I glanced at Lyr. A few rays of light just highlighted the perfect planes of his face. The word sublime rang in my head. Beauty and death linked in one man. He was like the underworld itself—unknowable, concealed. He kept secrets about himself. Like death, Lyr was a mystery. Her voice was like iron scraping against ice. “She of the House of Meriadoc will bring a reign of death. She of the poisoned blood.” My stomach dropped. So that was the prophecy. The House of Meriadoc—my family name. I was the only one left. And apparently, I was supposed to bring a reign of death. All magic had certain properties—smells, sounds, textures. I mostly listened to the sounds, like music that every magical being possessed. It was a thread of magic connecting two people. I tuned into the vibrations of the assassin. He’d come for blood, and his magic sounded like a drumbeat, a pounding in my blood. Once I’d found him, I pulled the comb through my sodden blue hair and launched into a low, ancient song—the song of the Morgens. In the night air above London, my magic called to my target. This was my magic. My sad dirt hole magic. I lured men to me with a comb and a song. And if they were bad men, I killed them. “I’m shifting more than I once did. At the wrong times. I’m losing myself.” The curse. “What exactly did you do that was so terrible?” He glanced at me, looking momentarily startled, like he’d already told me much more than he should have. “Only the gods know.” Cloaking the truth in shadows. It was the fae I’d killed earlier, but death had changed him. His crown now glowed with golden light, and it had grown longer, spikier. His eyes gleamed with gold instead of blue—a pale gold, a sharp contrast to his black eyelashes and straight, dark eyebrows. His canines had elongated. He no longer wore a shirt, and strangest of all, his tattoos moved across his skin, writhing like golden snakes on his muscles. The effect was disturbing, terrifying, and oddly beautiful at the same time. In fact, beautiful as he was, his whole appearance scared the bejesus out of me. It was like a vision of divine wrath no mortal was supposed to behold. A pit opened in my stomach, and I felt like I was falling. I knew the key had to be worth a ton of money. Worth risking your life over. “You slit her throat and hung her from a wall because she tried to steal your necklace?” “Are you judging me for killing? You have slaughtered plenty, Aenor, Flayer of Skins.” “For very naughty things. Murder, disfiguring other people. Not, like, pinching jewelry, you know?” His stare cut right through me, like every sentence I uttered was some kind of crushing disappointment to the entire fae race. You were once so powerful. The phrase—and the way he’d said it—lingered. He was reminding me of the good old days when I had lived in a tower, when the sea lulled me to sleep, when I could pull the waves to me like I was the moon. I’d do anything to forget it. I needed peace. I stared at the dark road ahead of me. The more we talked about the old days of Ys, the more I longed for my former powers. That long-buried hunger was stirring again, the lust for power. Yesterday, I hadn’t known the Athame of Meriadoc existed. Now, I wanted nothing more than to possess it, to feel its power charging my body. I love interacting with fellow readers, reviewers, bloggers and writers. Hearing about reader opinion is the fuel to my reader appetite, so get in touch and comment below! SHARE ON FACEBOOK Leave a comment and let's talk about |
VaishaliBorn in the UK Archives
February 2024
Categories
All
2019 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 15 books toward
her goal of
30 books.
hide
2020 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
20 books.
hide
2021 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
10 books.
hide
2022 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
2023 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
DisclaimerAll images of book covers on this site belong to the authors and publishers of the books.
|