‘The Winter Lord’ by Jaye Edgerton #LGBT #Review #Fantasy #Short

Eloreen reviews ‘The Winter Lord’ by Jaye Edgerton. This book was published by Dreamspinner Press on April 22th, 2014 and is about 78 pages long.

I love fantasy and needed recommendations from our backlist of books to review. Marc suggested ‘The Winter Lord’ as a short novella for the 2-4-1 theme week, where we read two (or more) shorts or novellas with less than 150 pages in the same week.

I’m glad I did. 🙂

*****

Blurb:

When Erik, a human scholar and amateur mage, sets out to find Alfheim, the legendary home of the light-elves, he has nothing to lose. His village suffers under a mysterious Unending Winter, and his lover died in a hunting accident while trying to find food. Erik wants to find a way to end the cold, but he doesn’t expect a beautiful but Winter-cursed fey lord who wants him for his champion—and his bedmate.

Lord Therial is an elemental creature, tied to the land, and the elves of his kingdom revere him like a spoiled but rightful ruler. A spell cast by a rival fey locks him and his little corner of Alfheim into a perpetual Winter that seems connected to the one afflicting Erik’s home. If Erik fails to defeat the enemy, both realms will remain trapped forever.

Buy Links: Amazon | Dreamspinner Press | ARe | B&N | Add to Goodreads

*****

I actually didn’t read the blurb for this story until I was creating this post. I wanted to read this story with an open mind and without any pre-conceived notions of what I should expect.

I ended up really liking the story and wish there was more. The descriptions of the world were beautifully written and I think the world should be further explored and hope the author has more to say about Erik and Therial.

I really like how the main protagonists grow through their interactions. When they meet, Erik doesn’t believe he has anything to live for and Therial’s arrogant and spoiled. They both develop a lot as characters through the experiences in Alfheim and Therial’s interactions with Erik.

The sex scenes are lovely and they develop into something more over time, too.

There were scenes that made me cry and I laughed at some of the dialogue, but I wanted to know more about the universe and the other secondary characters. I can see many possibilities for this wonderful world that are yet unexplored.

The story has a happily ever after and a well-crafted ending, While the pacing is good and I enjoyed the story, though, it doesn’t feel as complete as I would have liked.

I don’t know if Jaye plans on doing a sequel, but I think she should. 🙂

With this, I give The Winter Lord 8/10 Pots of Gold.

8/10 Pots of Gold (80% Recommended) – Compares to 4/5 Stars

*****

CONTACT THE AUTHOR: Facebook, Twitter, Website, Goodreads, Google+

Jaye Edgerton lives in Columbus, OH, with three ferrets and a long-suffering best friend-slash-roommate. “Eccentric” is a nice way to put it. In addition to fiction, she writes about geek culture for her local alt-weekly. She likes her fluffy happy romance to be about men and her serious dark fantasy to be about women—she’s contrary that way. Before deciding to take her writing seriously, Jaye spent a cumulative five-and-a-half years working in bookstores, used and otherwise. After that she spent seven years in tech support where she mostly wanted to cry a lot, but the experience encouraged her to chase her dream of being a professional writer instead of just writing dirty vignettes about her Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft characters that she showed to all of two people. She’s much too fond of office supplies, out-of-print sci-fi/fantasy authors, and Transformers.