Book 31 of my 2012 Goal

World of Ryyah: Birth of the Half Elves by H.L. Watson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

World of Ryyah: Birth of the Half Elve by H.L. Watson is an action packed love story starting off with attack, murder, and capture of human children who are to be sold as slaves and workers. To get to where boys can be sold on the market they are forced to go into the forest which is home of the Wood Elves who have an elite team of 'Rangers' that are responsible for protecting the forest from trespassers. After the children's captors are killed the children are spared and raised by one of the wood elves, Alayna, who not only becomes their surrogate mother, she teaches them to become Rangers.

When the elves are attacked by Barbarians, Brandela, the youngest princess of the wood elves is kidnapped and Alayna, the surrogate mother of the children is killed. Donovan, one of the human children, now grown to a young man, vows revenge against those that killed her and sets off after them. His plan is to rescue the princess since he knew that by doing so would mean the Barbarian's mission would be a failure and this would in turn cause the suppliers to take revenge on the Barbarians. This would serve as Donovan's revenge for Alayna's death and he didn't even have to confront the Barbarians himself.

Not everything goes as planned and I was treated to some ambushes, fights, and attacks. I also learned of a love that was thought as impossible along with a death I thought improbable. The action was good but to me the story didn't flow well. It was a bit choppy and this caused a slow time which was fine but the 'slow time' was rushed to get back into the action. There were some format issues which I could easily over look and they really didn't take away much from the story of this forbidden love of creatures from two different races, myths, and magic. I thought the story line was good and the author even included a shock to the readers toward the end. I look forward to reading the next book.

View all my reviews