
Series: Heirs of Magic #4
Published by Brightlynx Publishing on June 13, 2022
Genres: Fantasy Romance
Pages: 389
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
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A Broken Heart
Princess Salena Nakoa KauPo thought she was over her broken heart. She’d put her first love and childhood sweetheart, Rhyian, firmly in the past where he belonged. His bitter betrayal of her was locked away deep inside, along with her foolishly innocent hopes and dreams. Now Lena has been thrust together with him, the prince of shadows, the one man she could never resist, on a mission to save the world from a terrible cataclysm. Worse, Rhyian refuses to believe her when she says there’s no hope for them.
An Irresistible Longing
Rhyian is rather accustomed to being a failure. Goddesses know, he’s not magical enough for his sorcerous mother and not alpha enough for his father, the King of Annfwn. It hasn’t helped that he’s spent the last seven years trying to drown his sorrows—and to forget the one woman he ever loved, whose heart he carelessly shattered in a moment of weakness. Rhy knows he has to change to win back Lena’s trust, but how?
A Love That Can’t Die
As Lena and Rhy struggle to overcome the wounds of the past, they and their friends approach the final confrontation with the strange intelligence intent on rending apart the very fabric of their world. And it looks like it will come down to the pair of them to strike the final blow.
But only if they can build a new trust on the bitter past.
This is the final book in the Heirs of Magic series. This series is set in world of The Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms series, but you can read this series without having read either of those series. This series features the young adult children of the couples from those series. While the series starts off with a bit of that Young Adult series, it quickly gets to where it reads like any fantasy romance series. I do recommend that you read this series start to finish. There is a story arc that follows the entire series. And this story also ends with wrapping up the final pieces of the first three books as well.
The Storm Princess and the Raven King follows Selena (daughter of a librarian and a storm king) and Rhyian (son of the king and queen of the Tala and shifts into multiple different animal species). These two have a romantic history, which the others didn’t have. They were together before the series started, but then Rhyian blew it when he went from Lena’s bed to someone else’s. The Tala, as a culture, don’t tend to be monogamous and rarely get married. Rhy also is known for being a screw up. He has no direction in his life. The Tala don’t follow royal bloodlines, so while he is technically a prince, that doesn’t mean he will become the next leader of the Tala.
In this series, the characters have been tasked with trying to figure out what is going on with these magical rifts into different dimensions and with a magical, sentient being that they’ve been calling “the Intelligence” for lack of a better description. So for three books, we’ve seen the gang travel to different dimensions and fight creatures that come to their reality. They are slowly learning more and more about both the dimensions and the Intelligence. In this story, everything comes to light where we learn how these dimensions were created and what the Intelligence is. It was a fun ride and getting to the end of it was entertaining. There are a ton of action scenes to keep you on your toes.
As for the romance side of things, this is a second chance romance. There is some bitterness between them. Well, more bitterness on Lena’s part. There is more apathy and self loathing on Rhy’s part. Rhy still loves Lena, but really struggles with how to make her trust him again. Lena still loves Rhy as much as she tries not to, but she also doesn’t want her heart broken again. I was glad to see them come together. Mostly, I enjoyed seeing Rhy finally get to where he doesn’t have so much apathy towards everything.
Since this was the last book in the series, we see the gang come home from their adventure and explain not only everything that happened with the dimensions and Intelligence to the different rulers/leaders/parents. But they also have to explain the relationships. We get a little time with each couple as they each make different stops around the region/kingdoms.
I know I’m not explaining this series as well as I should. Just know that this is a really fun and exciting world. You could check out any of the series set in this world and be in for a really fun ride. Personally, if I were just coming across these books, I would want to start with the book that started it all, The Mark of the Tala and read all the series in order. But I’m also pretty particular about series that way. I will also mention that when I started the series, there were only two books between all the series. But I’ve stuck through the series and hope this isn’t the last I see of this world.
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I know I said this on one of your prior reviews in the series, but how did I miss this one so completely? I subscribe to her emails and everything. I guess I didn’t realize it was related to 13 Kingdoms and kept missing it. Someday I’ll go back and grab these. I do love the original two series.
I really want to read more of this author and keep getting more behind. One day I will read more of her books.
I like the sound of this. Wonderful review, Melanie
I read THE GOLDEN GRYPHON AND THE BEAR PRINCE and I had issues…maybe I should try book 2.