Beth is an archaeologist, struggling to make her own name
when so much of her work – including her very unusual, even supernatural,
ability to find dig sites are credited to her far-from-pleasant ex-husband. One
of those finds leads her to a mound in Ireland – and a being that she releases.
Normally, dealing with her ex-husband’s theft of artefacts and attempts to frame her would be her main concern – but Conn, the ancient fae warrior, is seeking not just his sword, but Beth herself. The mortal woman has caught his eye and his fancy – and the fae never accept no for an answer.
But these new explorations have revealed a side of Beth
she has long ignored – and could have implications for all of the fae, and the
world beside.
This book had some strong positive ticks. The world
building is solid, there has been some research or familiarity with old Irish
myths and legends, we have some nice shout outs to mythology and mythological
figures and a definite knowledge to some of the old tales which I really
appreciated.
On top of that has been some very solid world building
with some nice intriguing, interesting twists – particularly the druids and how
they interact with the fae and their history. It’s novel, it’s original, it’s
interesting and it has a lot of depth for exploration and nuance and potential
conflict, I like it.
The fae are also presented in a way that is suitably
alien and scary – and not in any way twee or shiny or friendly as well; scary
fae are always good to read about.
The characterisation is pretty solid when it comes to
Beth – she’s a character with a full, involved history, motivation and depth
that has really created a character with a lot of depth behind her that
reflects on her actions and thoughts really well. She’s a strong character, a
fully fleshed character. Conn is much less so – he’s beautiful with a layer of
angst for characterisation. His growth and evolution would be an interesting
element to him but it’s pretty simplistic and expected – he’s not a bad
character, he’s just not an amazing one either
One rather curious aspect of this book was the romance.
It kept reaching the very edge of holding up some of the most awful tropes –
and I was ready to tear it into little shreds – then twist right away from it
with a subversion. The fae are, as I mentioned, not nice people in this book –
at very least they’re arrogant, predatory and pretty lacking in anything
resembling compassion and they have a vast sense of entitlement. Which means,
when it comes to humans they find attractive, they don’t ask and they don’t
care about consent.
