Scan barcode
A review by themanfromdelmonte
The Will and the Wilds by Charlie N. Holmberg
3.0
This author is one of my most variable. When she's good, she's very good (The Whimbrel House trilogy) and when she's not, she's quite poor (Smoke & Summons, for example)
This sits somewhere in the middle.
The young woman encounters a mystling that is to all intents and purposes a faun. He feeds on the souls of mortals, stealing via a kiss.
Soon the pair are tied together as the owner of the artifact comes looking for it. To keep Mr Tumnus healthy they have to keep kissing as staying in the mortal realm is harmful for his kind. She's different in that only part of her soul is taken each time. This has the effect of gradually humanising him emotionally and physically while draining her.
Inevitably she falls in love with him in a Beauty and the Beast kind of way.
At the end, the mystlings are vanquished and after a bit of a separation, the lovers are reunited. Happy ending. Although I was never quite sure how her father was reconciled to the idea of his daughter hitching up with a creature from the netherworld.
I understand the author got the idea wholesale from a dream and there are fantastical elements to it but there's nothing very unusual. It read very much like a retelling and at the end I was left with a bit of a 'so what?' feeling.
This sits somewhere in the middle.
Spoiler
A young woman lives in a forest that is occasionally host to mystlings, creatures from the netherworld. Said young woman lives with her father who fought in a war against the mystlings and has retrieved an item of great power at the cost of some of his cognitive faculties. So far so standard fairy tale.The young woman encounters a mystling that is to all intents and purposes a faun. He feeds on the souls of mortals, stealing via a kiss.
Soon the pair are tied together as the owner of the artifact comes looking for it. To keep Mr Tumnus healthy they have to keep kissing as staying in the mortal realm is harmful for his kind. She's different in that only part of her soul is taken each time. This has the effect of gradually humanising him emotionally and physically while draining her.
Inevitably she falls in love with him in a Beauty and the Beast kind of way.
At the end, the mystlings are vanquished and after a bit of a separation, the lovers are reunited. Happy ending. Although I was never quite sure how her father was reconciled to the idea of his daughter hitching up with a creature from the netherworld.
I understand the author got the idea wholesale from a dream and there are fantastical elements to it but there's nothing very unusual. It read very much like a retelling and at the end I was left with a bit of a 'so what?' feeling.