Well, I read it. I’m wondering if I should have just stopped at the end of Culley’s story.
We’re now spending time with the ancient dark courts of Europe, specifically Nic who lives in Corsica. Nic’s elven family are royalty, and he is betrothed to Alessia, elven royalty from the European mainland and Culley Rune’s former fiancé.
Let’s face it, she is a total nightmare and the humiliation of Culley tossing her aside to bond with a human girl has not helped.
Nic, a pro football (soccer) player has just won his team the World Cup and he’s finally flying back to the family home in Corsica. It is there he meets Macy, an American backpacker who had no intention of becoming part of his fan pod, but is unable to leave now that she’s been tricked onto the palace grounds.
Macy, unable to be Swayed, is a breath of fresh air and he finds himself wanting to know more. Upon hearing she wants to leave, however, he is happy to drive her to the mainland and to replace her passport which has inexplicably gone missing.
Thus starts a budding romance… it’s cute and all, but the fact that there is a lot going on behind the scenes at the family home leaves me feeling it’s more Stockholm Syndrome rather than true love… but that’s just me. Plenty of sweetness and twitterpation, but the ending is one big old mess.
We do spend some time with Nox and the band (we learn more of Anders here and I hope we get glimpses into Matteus and Rolf before the series ends). The problem for me is it’s another massive leap to why yet another human isn’t the worst choice for our elf boy to be with and it’s also a time jump that I found annoying because we’re caught up with a quick recap of a paragraph.
Nothing against the author, but I hate time jumps tossed into a very linear story timeline… and recaps? I hate those with a passion.
So no, there isn’t anything specifically wrong, just a few stumbling blocks for me. Both Nic and Macy are interesting characters and both are written with compelling backstories, it’s just me getting in my own way from enjoying this one more. Sadly, with the ending we now have a new villain stepping up with a serious chip on their shoulder and a (to them anyway) very valid reason to see the human race obliterated from the earth more than the baddies we’ve seen before now.
Hell hath no fury…