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Princess Breena had been dreaming of her warrior lover when she was ripped from her Elden castle and thrown into a strange, dangerous realm. Lost and alone, she prayed for survival and vengeance for her stolen kingdom. She found both in a woodland cottage…in a dark bear of a man.
The golden-haired beauty had eaten his food and slept in his bed when Osborn found her. Though he wanted to awaken his virgin princess to carnal pleasures, Breena wanted more—including his warrior skills. Skills the once-legendary mercenary had long buried. Now Osborn had a choice—risk his life or deny his princess her fairy-tale ending.
My review:
This is the second book in the Royal House of Shadows series and focusses on Brenna, the princess of Elden. She wakes up after being magically whisked away from the scene of her parents' gruesome demise with an urge to follow a certain path. She knows she must survive and take revenge but at the moment she's not sure why and against whom she must take this revenge. Onwards she plods through a forest, clearly marked against intruders by the bare skulls hanging up. She stumbles across a wooden cottage and the scene that follows made me chuckle - it was Goldilocks and the Three Bears paranormal style. She enters the unlocked cottage, eats some oat porridge, breaks a chair and then goes to sleep in one of the beds. When she is awoken a while later, the gruff, angry man is the man of her dreams, literally. She has been dreaming of this warrior and the passion between them for a while now, but he is nothing like the man in her dreams. He also recognises her as the woman who has been invading his dreams and whilst he feels an attraction towards her, does not want to get involved with her at all.
Osborn is the oldest of 3 brothers, the only survivors from an slaughter on his village by whom he believes were soldiers/vampires from Elden. He is a berserker, following a ritual of manhood at the age of 15 in which he had to kill a bear and join their spirits together. He can call on his Ber when wearing the pelt of the bear he killed and develops an almost uncontrollable rage and strength, against which no-one will survive. Osborn's 2 little brothers were cute. They needed a big sister or mother figure in their lives and were so desperate for Brenna to stay even when Osborn made it clear that she should leave.
There is a great attraction between Brenna and Osborn right from the minute they meet. He believes she only wants him for his berserker power and the revenge she wants to take. She believes that he is her warrior, the man in her dreams who would protect her at all costs. Their relationship is not quite a smooth ride and even at the very end, I thought Osborn was going to leave her for good.
Brenna came across as a typical "princess". She only wanted Osborn to fight for her against those who killed her parents and didn't really care about him and his brothers initially. It was obvious she had a very good upbringing (she didn't know how to cook for example, something in this world, women would have done if they had to) and her selfishness irritated me a bit at the beginning. She did eventually start becoming more independent. Her own magical powers developed a bit, although we didn't see a great deal of that and she did learn how to fight with a sword, taking many hours practising and training physically. But ultimately Osborn, her warrior, had to save her!
Osborn was an angry man! Yes he had to go through 2 life changing events in the same day - his Bärenjagd (the bear killing ritual) and the battle in his village which cost him the lives of his parents. Not something I can imagine was an easy thing to do. He also had to bring up his two brothers on his own and became an assassin to help feed them, but boy he could have smiled some times! With Brenna's help, he realised that he had sheltered his brothers too much and was not preparing them to become the men and Berserkers they have be.
I was also a little confused to the timing of this book. Nikolai, in the first book and Brenna's brother, had been kept in the witches' palace for 20 years as time moves differently there, but this one seemed to take place immediately after Brenna's teleportation. Not sure how all the books will merge together or even if they will. I hope so! Would be good to see all 4 siblings back together, taking on the Blood sorcerer.
This book was ok. I liked it, but didn't think it was great. I think because it was so short the relationship between Brenna and Osborn was developed fully and the characters themselves were not fully developed either. I will be reading the rest of this series as I want to find out about the other 2 brothers from the kingdom of Elden - Dayn and Micah.
I would like to thank the publishers for providing this ARC free through Net Galley.
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