Honor’s Heir – C. J. Brightley
Back in the Erdemen royal palace, Kemen begins training Elathlo, the young Tarvil heir. His own life and love are finally peaceful. Elathlo, however, is terrified of Kemen and his future on the tundra, making him the perfect target to pressure in a plot against Hakan. Because of a boy’s fear and a traitor’s anger, Kemen may lose everything he loves.
Elathlo must face his fears and defy the traditions of his people if he hopes to be the leader his people need.
What a joy it is to find an author I can rely on to not plunge the knife in.
I make no secret of the fact that I’m not a fan of grimdark, and if anything is the opposite of grimdark, it’s this series. Characters are unequivocally good people. Characters are allowed to be happy and love one another. When characters are happy and love one another, it’s not a buildup to a terrible reversal in which Tragedy! Strikes! Everyone they care about! (though it can, and does, lead to some tense moments).
This isn’t to say that there’s no action; there’s certainly action, but it’s not happening every minute. It’s much more a book about relationships than it is about events, and as such, it reminds me of Debora Geary. It’s about the powerful things that happen when people are kind to one another.
I know the author on Google+, and she gave me an unsolicited free copy because I’d reviewed the previous books in the series. I’d gladly pay for future books, because sometimes it’s nice to relax and know that things will work out all right because good people are on the case.
This book review is by Mike Reeves-McMillan and originally appeared on Goodreads.. Mike writes the Gryphon Clerks novels, a series featuring heroic civil servants and engineers doing their best in a difficult world; the Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series, about underpowered magical practitioners stepping up to defend their city when nobody else will; and the Hand of the Trickster sword-and-sorcery series, in which a servant of the trickster god exalts the humble and humbles the exalted. His short stories have appeared in a number of professional and semiprofessional venues, including the Terry Pratchett tribute anthology In Memory.
