Radiance (Wraith Kings, #1)

by Grace Draven

[EBookObsessed]

I absolutely love the premise of this story.

Months ago someone offered me a free copy of Radiance and I didn’t pick it up because someone’s review turned me off about the story. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was and with 23,000 reviews on Goodreads (mostly 5 star), I couldn’t find it again. Let me say big mistake. What a wonderful story. Someone else on Goodreads said instead of Beauty and this Beast, this was Beast and the Beast, which is a perfect description. Let me explain.

Ildiko, is the niece of the king of Gaur. Ildiko is human. Brishen, is the second son of the king of Bast-Haradis. Brishen is Kai. The Kai are gray-skinned with glowing-yellow eyes, sharp teeth and claws, and are nocturnal. They are both considered extremely attractive to their own people, but to each other…not so much. Both Ildiko and Brishen accepted that their lot in life would be to suffer a marriage beneficial to their kingdoms but neither expected to marry someone who wasn’t their own race. This starts off on the right foot because neither party is resentful of the other simply because they know that neither had a choice and while it was not a love match, neither was angry or belligerent of the fact they were marrying a hideous stranger.

I liked that Ildiko and Breshen enjoy each other’s company and really, really like the person inside, even if the outside is shockingly foreign. I also like that we see this not just from the human’s viewpoint of how strange Kai appear, because we hear Breshen’s thoughts often about Ildiko’s freaky eyes and pale skin. But whatever their outward appearance is, they quickly become a united front against the scheming king and queen of Bast-Haradis and against everyone else. They were in this together, and as neither one of them mattered much to their families except as a political pawn, they now had someone who cared about them. Someone really ugly, but someone who was kind and thoughtful too.

The basic story beside the marriage of Ildiko and Breshen, was that their marriage was to unite their kingdoms, but a third kingdom, who wanted to go to war with the Gaur, wasn’t so happy about it. Now they would have to fight the Gaur and the Kai, who were formidable warriors. This third kingdom wanted to kill Ildiko and Breshen.

While the plot was simple enough and we end up with some graphic violence, the best part of this story was watching Ildiko and Breshen enjoy each other’s company until eventually they stopped being turned off by the strangeness of the other person and find true love…with a still pretty hideous stranger.

This is the first of a trilogy? series? I am definitely starting Book 2 asap.