"Fyne tale"

The Red Queen of Anwyn, Keelia expects her people's natural enemy Joryn the Caradon to kill her, but so far he has only threatened to harm her since he abducted her after heeding the advice of his people's witch woman Grandmother. Joryn demands Keelia lift the curse she put on his people that turn them into monsters, but she insists she did not do this and that an evil is coming to harm her wolf-people and his mountain cat--people unless they join forces.

She knows he is her soulmate that she has made love with in her dreams; he finds himself making love to his prisoner in his dreams. As they agree to a truce and begin a trek to Grandmother for further guidance, Keelia knows that in order for the Prophesy of the Firstborn to successfully complete phase two (see PRINCE OF MAGIC for the first phase), she will have to sacrifice love, which she assumes means betraying Joryn even perhaps killing him.

Book two of the Children of the Sun trilogy is a Fyne tale that can be read alone as it contains its own romantic fantasy, but also enhances the overall saga as begun in the opening novel. Sub-genre readers will appreciate the twist that the Anwyn and Caradon peoples are shapeshifters, just different animals. The action is driven by the lead couple from the start as the haughty courageous Queen knows her jailer has been the star of her fantasies for years and the desperate bewildered hero cannot understand how his prisoner "breeched" his defenses starting with his dreams, then his needs, and finally his heart. This is a superb entry that will have readers anxiously waiting for the third Fyne offspring confrontation with the Demon (see PRINCE OF SWORDS).

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 27, 2007

Summary

Following the acclaimed Sisters of the Sun trilogy comes the Children of the Sun, a trilogy about the sisters' first-born children. Here in its second installment, Keelia, Queen of the Anwyn, falls for her shape-shifting kidnapper, but still cannot deny the ever-looming Prophecy of the Firstborn: She will betray love in the name of victory.