| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: High Violence level: Medium Back Cover: “Time after time, the legendary Camber--one-time Saint of the half-magic race of Deryni--had intervened in the affairs of young Kelson, King of Gwynedd. Yet Camber was known to have died two hundred years before! Now Kelson set forth with his blood brother Dhugal to search out relics of this mysterious patron of his, leaving his uncle Nigel to rule in his absence. Then word came that Kelson and Dhugal had fallen from a crumbling cliff during a storm. No trace of their bodies could be found int he raging waters below. The king was dead and Nigel must become king. But to Conall, son of Nigel, the temptation of the throne was too great. In rage, he struck down his father with secretly gained Deryni power. Now he would be king! But Conall had overlooked Saint Camber...” |
It’s the love story, you see. I’d probably be okay with it, if it wasn’t for the love story. Or if this love story even had a happy ending, I might accept that. (And there’s a huge spoiler for you.) But I’m not so sure I would like even that, to be honest. Kelson and Rothana might be violently in love, but I can’t help the feeling that it’s more of a physical attraction than it ought to be. Certainly Kelson’s behavior is wildly inappropriate while convincing Rothana to accept his proposal, especially given that she’s still in holy orders. He may love her, but it doesn’t seem like he respects her as much as I would like. So I guess I’m not too upset that they don’t end up together, but the way they don’t end up together just makes me want to hit something. Preferably Kelson’s cousin Conall, the power-hungry, homicidal idiot.
So, if we set aside the ill-fated love story, and Conall being generally duplicitous, and the fact that this book just sort of shatters quite a lot of what was built up in the preceding two books, what you end up with is a story of two best friend/brothers trying to survive in an impossible situation, while their respective father/father-figures risk everything in a desperate attempt to find them and prove they aren’t dead. That part, I can totally get behind, and when I do go back to this book, those are the parts I bother to read. But even that gets ruined for me with a completely unnecessary sex scene. I can’t tell you how detailed it is, because I keep skipping it, so I guess it’s detailed enough to skip. But definitely gratuitous, because it really doesn’t affect the story at all.
So, my final evaluation is that there are parts of this book that I absolutely love, but more parts that just don’t do anything for me. While I have all the other books of the series on my bookshelf, this one is conspicuous only in being missing. You just have to know what happens in it in order to understand everything that comes after it.