THE BIRD AND THE SWORD
Publication date: May 11, 2016 Genre: Fantasy, Romance Recommended for ages: +16 |
Nominee & Finalist
"Best Fantasy"
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Swallow, Daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them ‘til they’ve time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour. You won’t speak and you won’t tell, you won’t call on heav’n or hell. You will learn and you will thrive. Silence, Daughter. Stay alive.
The day my mother was killed, she told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. Then she predicted the king would trade his soul and lose his son to the sky.
My father has a claim to the throne, and he is waiting in the shadows for all of my mother’s words to come to pass. He wants desperately to be king, and I just want to be free.
But freedom will require escape, and I’m a prisoner of my mother’s curse and my father’s greed. I can’t speak or make a sound, and I can’t wield a sword or beguile a king. In a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left, and who could ever love . . . a bird?
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{My Review}
I loved being pulled into a new fantastical world of magic, romance and adventure. The Bird and the Sword creates it's own magic from the beginning as the power of words are shown to be uplifting, but also deadly. The characters at first are hard to get to know until suddenly you are wrapped up in them and their problems. It was wonderful to watch as main character Lark opened up to find her hidden gifts. The creativity of the "Gifted" people was very interesting and well written. The overall story flowed well and kept you enthralled as young King Tiras fights for his kingdom and his life against the merciless and deadly bird men, The Volgar.
The world building is woven so well you are enveloped quickly into the kingdom of Jeru. Lark's journey is the heart of this story and truly the most fulfilling aspect of this novel.
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He
waited for me to continue, but I was holding myself tightly, refusing to
think at all, so I wouldn’t share more than I wanted to.
“They would have killed us. All of us. You saved so many.” “I killed so many.” My voice snapped back at him, lashing out like a snake. He left his bed and came toward me. I turned and braced myself for his touch, but he stopped before he reached me. “Yes. You did. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” His tone was frank. Admiring. I wanted to scream. My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “I am not a sword.” “What?” he asked, surprise coloring the word. “I am not a sword!” I squeezed my eyes shut against the hot tears that rose immediately. I didn’t want to share any of this with him. But my thoughts were unruly, and he was listening intently. “I am not a weapon. I don’t want to be a weapon!” “You are what you are. I am what I am. It matters little what we want.” “I am not a weapon.” The words were a cry, mournful and resistant. I felt him draw closer, but still he didn’t touch me, and for that I was grateful. If he touched me I would break down. “I never wanted to be king. But it is what I am. It matters little what we want,” he repeated. I turned and stared up into his face, filled with an anguish that wouldn’t abate. “You’re wrong. It is the thing that matters most.” “Why?” he murmured, his eyes intense. “Because without desire, there is only duty.” My lips trembled, and I bit down on them, bidding them to be still. He pressed a thumb against my mouth, freeing my lower lip from the grip of my teeth. “Do you desire me?” I jerked, resisting the coiled need that suddenly sprang from my belly and filled my chest. His eyes flared and his breath caught, and I wondered what I’d given away. I could only guess. I stepped around him, but he caught me up, lifting me off the ground, one arm beneath my hips, one braced around my back. He walked back to the thick furs where he slept and laid me down on them. “This is not my duty. Or my desire.” “It is both,” he responded, his arrogance setting my teeth on edge.
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THE QUEEN AND THE CURE
Publication date: May 9, 2017
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Recommended for ages: +16
Publication date: May 9, 2017
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Recommended for ages: +16
There will be a battle, and you will need to protect your heart.
Kjell of Jeru had always known who he was. He'd never envied his brother or wanted to be king. He was the bastard son of the late King Zoltev and a servant girl, and the ignominy of his birth had never bothered him.
But there is more to a man than his parentage. More to a man than his blade, his size, or his skills, and all that Kjell once knew has shifted and changed. He is no longer simply Kjell of Jeru, a warrior defending the crown. Now he is a healer, one of the Gifted, and a man completely at odds with his power.
Called upon to rid the country of the last vestiges of the Volgar, Kjell stumbles upon a woman who has troubling glimpses of the future and no memory of the past. Armed with his unwanted gift and haunted by regret, Kjell becomes a reluctant savior, beset by old enemies and new expectations. With the woman by his side, Kjell embarks upon a journey where the greatest test may be finding the man she believes him to be.
This book is a STANDALONE novel featuring characters that were introduced in The Bird and The Sword and it is recommended that The Bird and The Sword be read first.
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{My Review}
I really liked the first book in the series, but I truly loved this second book even more. The characters were written so much deeper and were harder to figure out, but the payoff in the end was great. Kjell is closed off and has good reason because of his harsh upbringing. I didn't like him in the first book and he crept his way into my heart during the second book. As you read the novel you can't help but fall for this reluctant hero just as the heroine Sasha does. Their love story is heart-wrenching as both of their hidden backgrounds come into play. Just as Lark and King Tiras in The Bird and the Sword had to learn to accept their "Gifts", so do Sasha and Kjell in The Queen and the Cure. The Gifted are the spinners, tellers, seers, changers and healers. They both also have to learn to accept who they truly are and the responsibilities that come with their titles. This novel felt more intimate as you get to know the characters on a personal level. There are a few scenes of a sexual nature that are more appropriate for the 18+ crowd but nothing that would be seen as pornographic.
I love the way that Amy Harmon writes. Her words are so beautiful and lyrical. Here is how the novel opens...
“Light
glanced off of the empty throne and streaked across the wide room,
peeking around corners and climbing the walls. Silence was the only
occupant. Something fluttered overhead, breaking the stillness. Vines
with leaves so emerald they appeared black in the shadows, wrapped their
way around the rocks and past the windows, filtering the light and
casting the interior in a wash of green. The castle was holding her
breath. She’s been holding her breath for so long”.
That just makes me sigh!
So if you are looking for a tale filled with adventure, romance, deep characterization, fantasy and an over-all good story, then The Queen and the Cure is one you should pick up. I highly recommend you read the first book in the series, though this could be a stand alone, but it will mean so much more in following Kjell's journey to know where he started from.
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"There
were no secrets, no sorrows, nothing hidden, nothing lost. They saw not
what would be or what had been, but only what was. She saw him. He saw her. And they saw nothing else."
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She turned and walked
into her room, and he followed, shutting the chamber door behind them.
She perched on the edge of her bed, her hair pooling around her,
reminding him of the day she stood in the rain, battered and bedraggled,
clinging to her clothes while he clung to his resistance.
He sank to his knees before her, abandoning his resistance completely, and she drew him to her, cradling his head in her lap, and stroking his hair. Still kneeling in front of her, he wrapped his arms around her hips and drew her from the bed and into him, connecting them from their knees to their noses, his arms supporting her weight. For a moment she hovered slightly above him, her hands braced on his shoulders, eyes searching, wanting but waiting, until the exquisite became the excruciating, and he wound one hand in her hair, lifted his chin, and pulled her to him, mouth to mouth. He kissed her, taking her to the floor because he was too overcome to stand, clinging to her body because he was too undone to go slow. The storm pounding in his limbs and in his belly began to build in his heart, seeping through his skin and gathering in the corners of his eyes. He wanted to weep. It was the strangest sensation, the most puzzling reaction he’d ever experienced. He wanted to lay his head on Sasha’s chest and weep. Instead he breathed against her lips, withdrawing enough to move his mouth along the delicate bones of her collar, over the swell of her breasts, before he paused, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed to her abdomen. He was happy. The feeling surged through him, an echo of the swelling he’d felt when Sasha had told him his kisses made her joyful. He was . . . happy. And he wasn’t killing anything. There wasn’t a sword in sight or a birdman in the sky. He was lying on a stone floor with Sasha in his arms, her hair twined around them, her hands on his face, her heart pounding beneath his cheek, and he was perfectly and completely happy. “There once was a man named Kjell of Jeru who could pull trees from the ground with his bare hands,” he began, not even knowing exactly what he was going to say. “So he was a very strong man?” Sasha asked, not missing a beat. “Yes. The strongest.” She laughed softly, the tremor making her body move against his. “He could wrestle lions and toss bears and once killed ten birdmen with his bare hands. But the man was lonely. And his heart was dark.” “Not so dark,” she murmured. “Shh. It is my story.” She pinched him and he rose up to kiss her again, punishing her mouth with his lips and his tongue, unable to help himself.After a breathless moment he withdrew, panting, his eyes still on her mouth, even as he tried to refocus his thoughts. Sasha’s eyes pleaded and her lips begged, and he knew if he didn’t continue with his story now, there would be no more conversation.
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{Meet Author Amy Harmon}:
Amy Harmon is a USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy
knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and
she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew.
Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Amy has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. Amy Harmon has written eleven novels, including the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, and the bestselling historical, From Sand and Ash. Her novel, A Different Blue, is a New York Times Bestseller. Her novel, The Bird and the Sword, is a Goodreads Best Book of 2016 nominee. For updates on upcoming book releases, author posts and more, join Amy at www.authoramyharmon.com.
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{All Books written By Amy Harmon...so far!}
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