Review: Stone Song by D.L. McDermott

stone song by dl mcdermottFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Cold Iron, #3
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Pocket Star
Date Released: June 9, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Sorcha Kavanaugh knows better than to tangle with the Fae. She’s been aware of the Fair Folk, the Gentry, the Good Neighbors since she was a little girl. Her Gran used to warn her not to sing, not to play music, not to even hum, lest the Beautiful People hear her remarkable voice and spirit her away. Sorcha never believed Gran’s stories, until one of the creatures walked into a bar where she was singing and stole a year of her life. So when Elada Brightsword, the right hand of South Boston’s renegade Fae patriarch, interrupts her set at the Black Rose, Sorcha knows trouble has found her…again.

The Fae warrior has admired Sorcha from afar for months, but he’s aware of her unhappy history with the Fae, and has been waiting for the right time to approach her. Unfortunately for Elada, time has just run out. An old enemy, the malign Prince Consort, has identified Sorcha as a Druid descendent with the potential to become a stone singer, a bard with a voice that can shatter the strongest magical constructs. He will stop at nothing to enslave Sorcha and use her voice to bring down the wall between worlds, freeing the decadent, deadly Fae Court to return—and rule again.

My Review:

silver skin by d l mcdermottI did not walk into Stone Song with the same sense of anticipation as Silver Skin (reviewed here). Unlike the second book in the series, Stone Song is not set up ahead of time; Elada Brightsword’s romance with Sorcha Kavanagh isn’t hinted at previously, so as a romance, it’s a bit out of the blue.

On the other hand, Elada’s search for Sorcha and people like her is part of the overall story arc. The sorcerer Miach is hunting for people who might be unknown Druids, and is hoping to get to them before the evil fae Prince Consort kidnaps them.

Sorcha has run afoul of the fae before; one stole an entire year of her life, using and abusing her body and her talent into the bargain. She found her power by killing him for it. Sorcha, a singer of the old Celtic ballads, has the ability to disable or even kill fae with the power of her voice.

Miach isn’t sure whether he can get her on the “good” side, or whether she will have to be killed to keep her untrained power out of the Prince Consort’s hands. Elada has been coming to her shows for weeks, and became fascinated with her, not just her voice, before the sorcerer sent him to find her.

There is a hint that Elada should use any means possible to bring her to their side, and if he gets to enjoy seducing her, then it is worth any price to earn her cooperation. But Elada wants her trust, and for himself.

Sorcha has learned to her cost that the fae are not trustworthy. It’s only after she discovers that the dangers of the Prince Consort that Elada warned her about are all too real, that she is willing to see if Elada and Miach can be on the same side as her Druid self.

Only at the end of all the betrayals and counter-betrayals can Elada and Sorcha find out if the bond they have forged in the midst of constant danger will hold.

Escape Rating B: I enjoyed Stone Song, but more for the way it moved the overall story arc forward than for the romance between Elada and Sorcha. We learn a lot about the events in the past that brought Miach and Elada to their conflict with the Prince Consort, and why every fae in this world seems to have a grudge against nearly everyone else. The Prince Consort does an excellent job of playing the different fae off against each other, to his own benefit.

The problem with living forever is that grudges truly are eternal, and no one seems to ever forget a slight. Also, the old fae like Miach are used to being in control, and don’t seem to handle things well when the younger generations go against their wishes.

Also, these are the fae, and very tricksy. It’s not that Miach and his side are precisely good, just that their self-interest makes them less bad from our human perspective. What’s fascinating is just how quickly the heroines forgive them.

Cold Iron by D.L. McDermottWhile I liked Sorcha, she represented a return to the heroine as former victim, a theme prevalent in the first book, Cold Iron (reviewed at The Book Pushers). Although the heroine of Silver Skin, Helene, is the only one so far who is not a budding Druid, she’s also the only one who hasn’t let herself be victimized.

But I still want to read the next book in this series as soon as it comes out. I think (I hope) its going to be a long war between our fae and the Prince Consort.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Silver Skin by D L McDermott

silver skin by d l mcdermottFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Series: Cold Iron #2
Length: 369 pages
Publisher: Pocket Star
Date Released: April 14, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KoboAll Romance

Helene Whitney has been losing time. Not losing track of time, but missing hours, finding whole blank spaces in her day she can’t account for. A year ago she would have put it down to overwork and exhaustion, but that was before she found out about the Good Neighbors, the Fair Folk, the Beautiful People, the Fae.

Ancient, immortal, tricksy and cruel, these creatures out of myth and legend rule the Irish enclaves of South Boston and Charlestown, and one of them has been using magic to abduct and control Helene for hours every day, gaining access to the collection at her museum and searching for ancient objects of Fae power.

Now, Helene’s only hope of escaping this unknown assailant lies with the Fae sorcerer, Miach MacCecht, a man she knows she can never trust—and who may prove impossible to resist.

My Review:

Cold Iron by D.L. McDermottThis was the story I wanted at the end of Cold Iron (reviewed at The Book Pushers), and I read it in one sitting.

Silver Skin felt like a totally different story from Cold Iron, because the hero and the heroine felt like much stronger people. Helene and Miach are both, in their various ways, survivors.

Helene is Beth’s friend from Cold Iron. She’s the development director (read chief fund raiser) for the museum where Beth works. Her introduction to the reality of the Fae in the 21st century was brutal and almost fatal. But she walked away, in spite of her attraction to the sorceror Miach.

Some things come at just too high a price.

But she can’t stay away. Not because of Miach, but because some other, and unknown fae is stealing hours out of her life. She recognizes enough to know that she is being compelled, but can’t remember who is doing the compelling or what she is being compelled to do in her lost hours.

The only person she feels safe in telling her problem to is Beth, but Beth is out of the country on a dig. When Helene tries to tell her over the phone, the compulsion prevents her speaking the words. She only knows one other person who might be able to help her, but she doesn’t want to put herself back in his world. She has no choice, and she has to know if he’s the cause. He was before.

Miach runs the protection rackets in the Irish neighborhoods of South Boston, and he has for centuries. He’s the most powerful fae to remain on this side of the wall between the sidhe and our world. While the fae are generally selfish and self-centered, Miach has his own reasons for wanting to keep the fae court and the wild hunt out of our world. His family, his mixed blood children, grand-children and great-grandchildren, will be the first playthings of the court. He protects his own.

He wanted Helene to be his from the moment he first met her, but when his sons conspired to turn her over to the Prince Consort, he lost his chance. Until some other fae placed multiple geasa on her; making her forget, making her search her museum, making her someone else’s pawn.

In order to break the compulsions, even Miach needs help. And information. Someone is helping the Prince Consort to try breaking the barrier between worlds. Digging into that plot could get them all killed.

If the curse that has been placed upon Helene doesn’t destroy her first.

Escape Rating A-: Even while kidnapped and tortured, Helene never lets herself be a victim. No matter how bad things get (and they get very bad) Helene goes into every situation with her eyes wide open, and always searching for a way out. She’s attracted to Miach, but is unwilling to be compelled into a relationship. And the more she fights, the more he values her. While there is an element of the thrill of the chase to their relationship, it also feels like Miach wants a real relationship with a whole person; he’s cared for all the women in his life over the past 2 millennia, and wants a partner and not a slave.

Helene is in grave danger for the entire story, and wants to grab life with both hands. She decides that Miach is part of what she wants, and it is her decision and not a compulsion.

In addition to just how hot the relationship between Miach and Helene gets to be, we also see more of the fae who have survived and adapted to our world, and the breadth and depth of the plot to return the court. The twists and turns in the plot were convoluted, but made complete sense once you saw them. This part of the story is going to spill over multiple books, as it should. We only saw the beginning of how far the Prince Consort is willing to go to return the courts to the world, and he’s both intelligent and very, very sick.

stone song by dl mcdermottI had such fun with Silver Skin that I started Stone Song the minute I finished. The war between the adapted fae in our world and the high court is heating up nicely!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.