Fallen Review

For the third time this year, Ann Hunter has produced a masterpiece: this time in her twisted retelling of the “frog and the princess” in Fallen.

Fallen is the bow that wraps up the package that Ann started in The Subtle Beauty and wrapped ever so delicately with Moonlight. Fallen tells the tales of Sylas Mortas and Ros, the chicken who thinks she is more than that.

The tale opens with Sylas running off to avoid being subject to an arranged marriage. Along the way, he falls for a beautiful robber who takes him prisoner and demands that he return to the king for ransom. Reluctantly, Sylas agrees and goes back, dejected that he has lost “the love of his life.”

Once back at the castle, Sylas demands that he be given a chance to find “the love” instead of being forced into a live of loveless marriage, as he supposed that the arranged marriage would be. Reluctantly, the father agrees and gives him until the next holiday to find her or be forced into the marriage.

The holiday comes and there is no sign of the robber. Sylas resigns himself to the future, only to find out that the marriage was arranged to the robber, who was secretly a princess from another region. He happily looks forward to the wedding after finding out this revelation.

The first twist of the book happens when Sylas’ grandfather is faced by a witch. Without giving away too much, Sylas takes his grandfather’s place, and this is a twist that causes ripples thru the rest of the book, even leading to who dies.

After the witch takes Sylas he begins to learn magic, and this is the part of the book that ties in to the other two books of Ann’s writing, as she explains how things were from Sylas’ perspective.

I mentioned Ros, as the chicken who thought she is more than that. Her story is intermingled throughout the book, and she helps to keep Sylas human during much of his tutelage under the witch, and it makes for entertaining backstory. I have heard there is to be a separate story of Ros coming out, and I thoroughly look forward to its unveiling.

As is the case with all of Ann’s writing, this book sucks you in from the first page and you do not want to put it down. It is a story of morality and mortality, death and life, and how choices affect not just your life, but others around you. It is definitely worth your money to pick up this book and it would make another good bedtime story to read to your children. I heartily give this book five stars!!

You can find this book at Ann's Amazon page located here. After speaking with the author, she has advised me to tell she is having a mega sale Nov 28 - Dec 1, leading up to the release of A Piece of Sky (ROS's story),  Take a moment to check out her other books so you get a complete picture of her awesome body of work.

As always, if you like what I have to say, please leave me feedback below or send me an e-mail at childofking88@aol.com. If you don’t like what I have to say, please leave me feedback below or send me an e-mail at childofking88@aol.com.
As always, be kind, please rewind, and remember two wrongs may not make a right, but three rights always make a left.

Moonlight Review

Moonlight is the second story by Ann Hunter, and is prequel of sorts to her first book The Subtle Beauty. I was asked to read an advance release copy of the book and do the review for the book, and after reading the book, I could honestly say, I would have read the book anyway.

Moonlight is the story of Aowyn and her six brothers, as they grow up in the Summer Isle. Aowyn is the red-headed princess and love of her mother Sulwyn’s heart. As the book opens, Sulwyn is struck with an illness and dies, leaving her father Aodhagain alone --- at least for a while. The queen’s handmaid, Ciatillait, swoops in and puts a spell over him, so all he sees is her and that is all he cares for. Caitillait is so obsessed with the kingdom that she drives the sons out of the castle with magic - - - magic that turns them into swans.

Aowyn cannot stand to see this happen to her brothers and goes to make a pact with the person who gave Caitillait her power, and this man – Silas Mortas – advises that he will return the brothers to their human form, after a thousand moons. All she has to do is tell no one of what has happened between them.

In the meantime, war breaks out between the Twelve Kingdoms and the Summer Isle and Xander and his brother are sent to fight at the front for their king, Rab Blacksteed. Xander spots Aowyn after an unfortunate event with two of the swan/brothers, and the result is love at first sight.

As the war rages on, Aowyn convinces Xander that they have a common enemy, Caitallait, who is now in charge of the kingdom, after wedding Aodhagain and causing him to have an illness. Together, they rid the kingdom of Caitillait, and Xander professes his love for Aowyn. When she does not return his love, he leaves and heads back to the Twelve Kingdoms to marry his brother’s fiancé, after the custom when your brother dies.

Aowyn goes after Xander, finding that he is her true love, and the book ends with a twist that you would not expect (I don’t want to give it away).

This, like The Subtle Beauty, is a short read, but well worth the investment, as it will teach your children about love, determination, and sacrifice. It is a great book to read to your children as they are going to sleep, as it has everything that a fairy tale should have: love, fighting, magic, and a happy ending.

You can find Ann Hunter’s books on Amazon here. It heartily deserves the five star rating that I have given it, and it will make its way into my children’s bedtime stories when they are old enough to appreciate good reading.

As always, if you like what I have to say, please leave me feedback below or send me an e-mail at childofking88@aol.com. If you don’t like what I have to say, please leave me feedback below or send me an e-mail at childofking88@aol.com.
As always, be kind, please rewind, and remember two wrongs may not make a right, but three rights always make a left.

The Spiral Slayers and The Subtle Beauty review

I have recently had the pleasure of reading two books which are so diverse but are well worth your time. The first one was entitled The Spiral Slayers by Rusty Williamson, which is a dense but interesting science fiction thriller that starts with the apparent death of an asteroid miner and ends with the beginning of a war with the spiral slayers. What happens in between is an edge of your seats thrill ride that makes you want to keep reading.

I honestly did not know what to expect on this novel when I picked it up and was a little leery when I first started reading and saw detailed drawings of the ships and the universe that was created for this book. But then the drawings began to make sense when I got into the book. The main premise of the story is a race of highly advanced slug like creatures for lack of a better description come to a planet and make contact with the people of that planet after rescuing the miner and bringing him back to life.

This starts a relationship between the miner, who becomes a celebrity amongst his people, and the creatures, who demand to only deal with him. One minor side effect of having the creatures rescue him is that he is granted immortality, which causes a major disruption with the government and the creatures have to give the entire planet immortality (which was their intention in the first place, much to the government’s dismay).

After the immortality drug is distributed and the creatures begin to share their tech with the people, the one that met with the miner leaves and sets out for the home world, which is a two hundred light year round trip. However, within a short time, the ship returns bearing bad news, that the creature’s galaxy has been destroyed.

Without going into too much detail, the rest of the story is about the build up of the military and the escalations to the actual war with the bad guys which never really appear, as the book ends with a cliff hanger, making you have to read the next book.

Rusty did a good job with his descriptions and made the universe come alive, and I will definitely be buying the second book to see how the conflict resolves itself. If you are into sci-fi and are looking for something that is not your typical robot or star chaser story, then give The Spiral Slayers a chance.

The other novel that I read was by a good friend of mine named Ann Hunter that I have known thru My Fitness Pal for several years. When she approached me last year and said she had finished her book, I was excited to read it. I would describe it as a fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and is entitled The Subtle Beauty.

It is the story of a king who made a pact with an “evil” man in order to expand his kingdom, and gained the use of a mystical sword. But by doing so, he became consumed with the power that the sword gave him. Finally, he is so consumed with the power that his wife asks that the gods take her to make him come home and be with their unborn son. The son is born but is deformed as the king is brought to his knees and sent back to his castle, ordered never to go out and try to expand again.

Years later, a beautiful daughter of a king falls in love with a falconer and plans to run away and be married to him, but the king has other plans. He wants to marry her to the deformed son of the defaced king so that the kingdoms can be united. The daughter hears of this and devises a plan to run off with her love, but is kidnapped. From there the story is intense, but full of love and loss, and the true face of love is shown as well as what it means to be a man, and a boy.

I could not put this story down from the time that I began reading it, and would read it again in an instant. It is the perfect Valentine’s Day story, or the perfect rainy day story, or the perfect story to read to your kids.

I do have to tell you that there are swear words in both stories which knocked them down from getting perfect 5’s.

As always, if you like what I have to say, please leave me feedback below or send me an e-mail at childofking88@aol.com. If you don’t like what I have to say, please leave me feedback below or send me an e-mail at childofking88@aol.com.


As always, be kind, please rewind, and remember two wrongs may not make a right, but three rights always make a left.