Race Against the Dark

by Jennifer Amriss

[chymerra]

As most of you who have been following my blog knows how much I love fantasy, dark fantasy especially. So when I was invited by Jennifer to read/review the Kings of Kal’Brath trilogy, I was very excited. These seemed to be right up my alley. And oh, boy, are they!!!!

Haylie/Ka’lei (btw…LOVE that name) always knew she was different. She had visions of poisonous green eyes, memories of being called Ka’lei and of strange singing. When she tried to tell her parents and other people this, she was dubbed strange and eventually she was declared insane and put on heavy medications.

So it was no wonder that she thought she was losing it when she almost hit a horse who seemed to understand her, who wanted her to ride him (he bowed down) and takes her to an injured man in the forest. Even when he basically kidnapped her and brought her to his friends, she still thought she was going nuts. It wasn’t until she got sick and was pushed into remembering who she was….Ka’lei. An elf who was sent as a baby into the human world to protect her against an evil mother and something more sinister.

I absolutely loved that the elves could not only soul bond with their mates (bit of a spoiler but Morough and Ka’lei soul bonded) but with their mounts. And of course, Ka’lei bonds with what was probably scariest mount out there….a darksire called Culthar. See darksires are a man killing horses who eyes glow with a blue inner fire and who is magic neutral…which means that he can absorb magic. Their female counterparts are nightmares (which made me giggle a bit….lol) .

She got summoned to the Council and gets a surprise. Her mother, Lillias, was the current Queen of the Summerlands (Morough was the Prince of the Netherdark). When she was exposed, she tried to attack Ka’lei and ended up hitting the current King of the Netherdark….Iliastaire Lo’lorien. In an attempt to try to heal the King, Ka’Lei accidentally pulled his soul into her head. Whoopsie.

The love story between Morough and Ka’lei was fantastic. The sex scene was great….until it was pointed out that they had sex with the windows open so everyone could hear them. Then I got a little creeped out….as did Ka’lei. It was pointed out that royal newlyweds did that as custom to bless their people but still….ewwww. But before they had sex, they fell in love and their love story was so sweet. They had to be my favorite fictional couple