Book: Black Snow
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Publication date: November 7, 2016
Length: 350 pages
Reviewed by Meredith
Synopsis
Prince Brier Snow has lived in the shadow of King Snow’s exalted memory. However, his fate changes when he nears his majority and Lirend’s steward queen attempts to dethrone him by exploiting an obscure requirement in the late king’s will: a yearlong sabbatical.
Brier travels to the desolate land of Aire to train under the Ceve guild, scorned refugees of war, including their guarded leader, Roland. Brier’s skillful master unlocks hidden potential, and what begins as a dutiful bond turns into ill-fated affection. When Brier returns to the capital, he’s carrying proof of his indiscretions with Roland—and his condition grows more apparent with each passing day. An affair with the huntsman is a scandal Brier’s enemies can use against him, but the birth of an heir is a burden even Brier is not sure he can bear.
Roland Archer, a man with a murky past, is skeptical of the contract to train the prince but willing to do anything for the guild’s freedom. Despite his best intentions, he is smitten by Lirend’s future king. Roland has resigned himself to solitude, but fate has other plans—for him, for Brier, and for Lirend’s oppressed subjects. Can Roland help Brier face a power-hungry queen and a country torn asunder? Either they will bring equality to a land that desperately needs it, or they’ll be thwarted by cunning enemies and an illusory curse.
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Review
Black Snow is a high fantasy, suspenseful, romantic, mpreg
story. Now, I haven’t read a lot of mpreg stories in my life so they are still
a new sort of thing for me. I adore high fantasy and I’ve come to see a lot of
MM high fantasy books seem to be venturing to the mpreg area. It’s not a bad
thing I’m just still trying to get used to it.
When the story opens Prince Brier Snow is being read to by
his nurse maid. She’s reading Snow White. It’s not until the story progresses
that I see so many parallels. However, the author absolutely made it their own
and the story does not follow it to the T. There were some similarities and I found
that to be quite wonderful.
Brier’s evil stepmother sends him away to be trained for a year
before he is to take the throne as king. The end result of this finds the
Prince falling in love, learning hard life lessons, and becoming stronger than
anyone ever knew.
I was intrigued with Brier; he has an ethereal beauty about
him but he’s also covered in silver scars shaped like leaves all over his body.
I was curious about them and when it’s revealed what they are it’s very cool!
Roland… He tore my heart out. TO PIECES! Life has not been
kind to Roland Archer in any way. And when he sees an opportunity to free his
people by training the Prince, the huntsman takes it. He had no idea how much
that would change his life.
We follow Brier and Roland through the span of years in
Black Snow. We’re talking over 20 years. The huge jump comes at the epilogue
and that epilogue was everything!
Black Snow is wildly entertaining. I gasped and cried, I
held my breath and picked up the pieces of my broken heart a few times. The
epilogue does leave this open to be a series or at least have a book two. I would be very interested in reading that.
It gave us so much hope and showed us so much love.
Brier and Roland truly fight for their love in this book.
Almost everyone is against their union. There’s war and deceit. There’s strong
love and weak alliances. It’s really got just about everything you’d look for
in a high fantasy story.
I very much enjoyed this.
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A high fantasy tale! Thank you for the review, Meredith adding this to my ever expanded TBR list. :)
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