Kim Alexander (1)

Okay, here's the thing. I'm probably harder than I ought to be on the books I receive from Netgalley, wanting apostrophes to be where they're supposed to be and the correct homophones to be used and commas to be where they're supposed to be which is a rather hypocritical thing to say considering this sentence. And in this book, at times, none of that happens consistently: "insure" instead of "ensure", and "the jokes on me", and "laying" for "lying", and dangling participles, and run-on show more sentences and comma splices like "The shade was famous, it was called Ever Blue."

Know what?

I don't care.

And I didn't care. I flinched when the errors came up, and muttered a little prayer that they'd be fixed for publication … and forgot about them a few seconds later. Because this was good. It was so good. It was so bloody damned good that I wanted to buy drinks for all the characters (except, you know, the truly horrible ones) and hug them and keep reading about them indefinitely. I genuinely missed them when the book was over. I love this book; I love these characters (even the horrible ones) and their growth and depth; I love the world(s)-building and the not-quite-hereness of it and the utterly beautiful and unique story. I can't wait for the second book.

It's got everything. It's funny - "'I am certain it’s a dog,' she said" – and moving and suspenseful. I cared – still care – what happened. My heart broke at one point, and I kept reading in a kind of a daze (but … no… I'm telling you, you're messing up the story…) until something else happened and I yipped and all but punched the air. And a little while later came one of the sweetest love scenes I've ever read.

And then there was the time I had to convince a demon he was pretty.

Okay, I do wish someone would take a firm hand on the editing reins. It was pretty bad. Normally I'd feel it necessary to knock off a star. So let's just say I knocked off a half a star and rounded up. Just to maintain my cred as a cantankerous grammar Nazi.

I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review. show less

“Well, we have to go get him back, don’t we?”

Yes. Yes, you definitely have to go get Rhuun back. That goes for you, too, Kim Alexander – please do keep getting Rhuun back. Because whatever can be said about the editing (for this book was as bad in terms of textual errors as the first one), it still doesn't matter: the world-building, the story, the characters shine through with a brilliance that just makes everything near it on the shelf look bad. The Heron Prince and its predecessor show more are exactly the type of book which you need to devour because you need to know what happens and because you're having such a great time – but which you try to stretch out because the faster you read it the sooner you'll be done and be faced with the enormous challenge of finding something that can follow it.

The setting and worldbuilding are kind of magnificent. You've got Mistra, which is kind of like here and now, only not really – maybe more like Jane Austen's England, but not really. It's Earth-like. There are horses (or are those dogs?) and chocolate, and a place where people learn the lore of demons.

And you've got Eriis. That's where the demons come from. Eriis is sand and heat and a red-eyed people with wings, and it's utterly alien. It takes some getting used to. Get used to it – it's more than worth it. Eriis just awes me, because of its utter alienness – in which setting the people, the "demons", are both also utterly alien and utterly approachable. They have loves and hates and loyalties that make them comprehensible, even while everything around them is strange and wonderful.

If you had told me at the beginning of The Sand Prince that I would be as fiercely loyal to Lelet as I am to Rhuun, I wouldn't have believed you. If you had told me that I'd come to love Lelet's sister and Rhuun's mother, I would have quietly assumed you were insane. If you had told me at the end of The Sand Prince that I would love Rhuun even more by the end of The Heron Prince, I would have boggled at the impossibility of that much affection for a fictional character who is not Anne Shirley or Samwise Gamgee. And yet.

And Rhuun's transformation(s) - ? Broke my heart in such a good way.

I can't wait for the third book. show less

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Eriis, world of the demons, and Mistra, world of the humans, used to be connected by a door. But when that door was blasted shut by the humans, leaving desolation in Eriis, there are those who would give anything to get the door open again. When the Prince of Eriis, Rhuun, is found to be the potential key, he escapes to Mistra, finally getting a chance to see the humans he's always show more been curious about, a curiosity further heightened by the romance novel that was left behind in Eriis when the humans left. But the world of Mistra is like nothing Rhuun imagined and he has no idea if he'll ever get back to Eriis again.

This is an extremely slow moving story. Which, as it is posited as the start of an epic series, that may not necessarily be a bad thing. But the problem is it gets to the end and doesn't feel like enough of the story has been told. There is just so much lead up that when the book ends--even though there is a sequel in store--it feels like a bit of a letdown.

That said, there is some amazing world building here and the character development is something for which I give a great deal of credit. Despite the pacing and lack of action, it kept me to the end. show less

There are two worlds. Eriis, the demon world ravaged by war, and Mistra, which is green and full of life. There's a door that separates the two and remains closed. Rhuun, Prince of Eriis, finds a human-written book and wants to visit there. After escaping Eriis, he meets a stubborn but fiery woman who may change his life.