A slow burn Reverse Harem-style series.After learning her family plans to kill her, Aeyli escapes the prison she’s been kept in ‘for the greater good’. She manages to stay one step ahead of her pursuers until a stroke of bad luck leaves her alone, defenseless, and out of options. Faced with certain death, Aeyli flees into the night and lands in the middle of a battlefield. Is she brave enough to … battlefield. Is she brave enough to ally herself with the monster she finds there, or will she die, never learning the true nature of the power burning inside her?
Agent Fourteen has no thought beyond the current mission—his mind, his life, and his will are bound tightly under the yoke of The Company. A momentary break in his conditioning is all it takes for him to yearn for freedom. Can Fourteen fight his programming long enough to attain true freedom, or is he doomed to be a mindless puppet for the rest of his life?
Following a tragic event, Guardian Marshall has spent the past five years trying to patch up the crumbling walls of his soul. The hauntingly familiar details of a new case draw his attention like nothing has since that terrible day. Will he be able to separate fact from fiction? Or will Marshall lose what is left of his soul?
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Stillbringer: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Zile Elliven
I borrowed this book via the KU program and am choosing to leave a fair and honest review.
A damsel who isn’t always in distress with a new kind of magic. A super soldier who will save her whatever the cost. A Guardian in search of the truth! All that and some of the funniest, cleverest and most sly narration I have come across in a long time combined with fast paced, well blocked combat scenes between magic, hand grenades and programmed super soldiers makes this a rocking and rolling good time.
I originally checked out this book because of the headline “**A slow burn Reverse Harem-style series.** “ on the www,Amazon.com page. I’m on a bit of a binge for the why-choose romances of the sci-fi/fantasy vein. But I only ran into one of the reverse harem members, Fourteen, the super soldier. There are a couple of other, okay maybe three possibilities that show themselves before the amazing if irritating cliffhanger, but there is slow burn and there is glacier like burn. Hopefully, the second book will appear soon and allay my concerns.
Fourteen, in himself, is pretty much a harem with his tangled history and mind. He is soldier/mercenary who is so brainwashed, he is more machine than man (he even has an operating system!) Until he runs into The Girl. The Girl is on the run from her family when she stumbles on Fourteen’s latest mission that has gone seriously awry. Each thinks the other has to be protected and that leads to some funny, some exciting and few smexy moments as their connection is formed by her magic and his memories.
The Girl, Aelyi is on the lamb from her family of high ranking witches and magic users who are plotting her death and actively trying to put those plots into action. Her battles and escapes catches the attention of the Guardian Team called Fire, which is made of Marshall (a strong willed but sensitive Dreamwalker with a deep and painful secret), his friend, Jack and Marshall’s sister Adelle.
I loved the new type of magic a lot and really did enjoy the smart dialogue and exciting action scenes as well the birth of Fourteen’s and Aelyi’s romance. Their draw is a fascinating thing and I really liked his back story. I enjoyed Marshall’s sharp tongue and Jack’s nearly High-British quips. The only problem with the two Guardians? I didn’t get a lot of physical description of Jack, his history (there is a bit of a hint) or his actual magic. That was terrifically frustrating! Not having a physical description of a minor character isn’t a huge deal breaker for me, but Jack is kind of a lynch pin here. I needed a bit more of him.
The magic system was new, expansive, and laid out carefully through dialogue and flashbacks, so the trap of a huge front load of information or one of those irritating appendices explaining it. Ms. Elliven gives it to us in a very organic matter.
Hints to Fourteen’s past are probably the best part. He is reminiscent of a Dean Koontz character. A sexy, sad, strong soldier with a tangled and painful past! I could fall for him in real life!.
Aeyli grows in the story, going from a runaway afraid of herself and her own strengths to a young woman of means and power beyond the magical.
Warning: There is a big, big Cliffhanger with no relief in our immediate future. This book is not for a reader who has to have all the story right away. If this is you, you might want to wait until Ms. Elliven has a few more episodes of Fourteen’s and Aeyli’s stories out there.
All in all a strong start with only a few annoying quirks.
4 ½ stars rounded up to 5.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DZP2KVR
A book I didn’t know I needed!
This is right up my alley in terms of genre (urban, paranormal some romance, RH inklings, etc). Loved the characters and the plot. Lots of world building, not too much vocabulary or history to memorize.
Gotta go read the sequel.