Initially, I’d thought about opening this blog with an introductory post of some sort, but… that’s what the About page and the sidebar are for, so let’s just get into the good stuff.
Transformation – Carol Berg
The Rai-Kirah, Book 1; published in 2000. 439 pages. ★★★★★
“Would I could undo what has been done.”
Summary:
Seyonne is a man waiting to die. He has been a slave for sixteen years, almost half his life, and has lost everything of meaning to him: his dignity, the people and homeland he loves, and the Warden’s power he used to defend an unsuspecting world from the ravages of demons. Seyonne has made peace with his fate. With strict self-discipline he forces himself to exist only in the present moment and to avoid the pain of hope or caring about anyone. But from the moment he is sold to the arrogant, careless Prince Aleksander, the heir to the Derzhi Empire, Seyonne’s uneasy peace begins to crumble. And when he discovers a demon lurking in the Derzhi court, he must find hope and strength in a most unlikely place…
(From Goodreads)
Transformation was simultaneously wonderful and very, very frustrating. To its credit, it is by far the most compellingly readable thing I’ve picked up in several months. On a technical level, it’s fantastic, and easily merits five stars. However, there was one major drawback for me and that… was that it felt like the central relationship of the book was a hair shy of being romantic, and would have been if the two main characters hadn’t both been male.
(The plus side is that both of these things make it a great first entry for this blog.)
Kogi Reviews 