Sandy M’s review of The Lady of the Storm (Elven Lords Series, Book 2) by Kathryne Kennedy
Paranormal Romance published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 1 Aug 11

Kathryne Kennedy is one of those authors whose books I anxiously await to hit the shelves. She builds the most exciting, unusual, and alluring worlds for her stories. Her characters also exude the same qualities, and then some, with such emotional pull surrounding them, all because of their circumstances and, ultimately, their unconditional measure to love. She weaves a spell around her readers just as her characters cast their spells of magic in and around a London that will surprise you at every turn.

In this book we return to the sovereignties of the elven lords with the ultimate action taking place in Dewhame, from which our heroine hails – well, in a roundabout way. Cecily is the daughter of the Lord of Dewhame, but she’s been hidden away  ever since it was discovered her powers are just as great as her father’s. It’s been nine years she’s lived in her peaceful seaside cottage, a place where she can cavort to her heart’s content in the water that lives within her.  But suddenly her world is upended when her village is attacked and those she loves lose their lives.

Protecting Cecily all those years has been done from the shadows as much as possible, but now Giles must come out in the open and face his feelings for the woman she’s become, power and all. But he goes through minefield after minefield on their journey to Firehame Palace, where they will meet up with the Fire Lord and others who are helping in the Rebellion against the other elven lords. Giles loses his fight for control where Cecily is concerned, especially once she realizes the man does care for her, even though he rejected her years ago when she was young and much more naive, and she embraces her new-found allure to make Giles confront his feelings.

While the characters in these Elven books are some of the best written, along with their unusual powers, it’s also the world Ms. Kennedy has once again created that brings these books to life. The scenes in which Giles and Cecily return to the Seven Corners of Hell – that point in England where all seven sovereignties connect, a forest of terrifying creatures and nature, along with their destructive powers and fetes – to find her missing father glue you to the page to find out what’s going to happen next. It’s the unusualness of Ms. Kennedy’s imagination that keeps me coming back again and again to read her stories, along with the emotion her characters must go through for what they want and need the most.

We also get to meet up with the Fire Lord and his heroine from the previous book to see how their lives are progressing under the guise of an ingenious deception to hopefully bring long-awaited peace to England. I was hoping for a little more with that lord, because his story so touched me. But it’s enough to go along with the hope that we may see more of him in future books.

Have you read any of Kathryne Kennedy’s books? If not, you need to. Get lost in her magical, spell-binding worlds, meet characters you’d truly like to know, and triumph with them, just as romance readers have come to expect, when love wins the day against the wrongs of the worst evils for the betterment of mankind. Then you, too, will come back to her stories again and again.

Grade: A+

Giles is bound to protect her…

In a kingdom viciously ruled by warlike elven lords, village blacksmith Giles Beaumont reluctantly swears to protect the half-elf, half-human Cecily Sutton, never dreaming that he will fall under her enchanting spell.

But duty soon turns to desire…

When Cecily’s father disappears, Cecily and Giles set out to find him. But, as their journey unfolds, duty is quickly replaced by desire–and the search for Cecily’s father leads to a magical destiny that could end the rule of the elven lords forever …

No excerpt available.

Other books in this series:

The Lord of Illusion – February 2012