With magic, intrigue, fantasy, two gorgeous women in love, and an evil step-mother trying to tear their world down this novel is sure to be a pleaser.
Being the unabashed fan that I am of the Lost Girl series where Fae and human worlds collide, and fantasy and girl / girl love are the order of the day, I was looking forward to sinking my teeth into Ladysmith by wife and wife team Roxanne and KL, writing together under the pen name ‘Rhavensfyre’. Despite a somewhat slow start, where I took a while to become invested in the story and characters, this book soon fired up and didn’t disappoint.
An intriguing prologue introduces us to the evil Bellaria, banished from Faerie for her greed and betrayal of the Fae. She lands in a raging blizzard in the world of mortals and immediately shows her ice-cold nature by killing the kindly old woman who takes pity and brings Bellaria into her home.
We are then brought back to human world, where we meet the young Rohanna MacLeod, a gifted horsewoman in a long family line of equine lovers and handlers, who is tortured by nightmares she can never remember upon waking. To escape her over-bearing,controlling and critical stepmother, Ro spends hours riding along the trails on her father’s farm and practicing for competitions she almost always wins. It is on her way to one of these competitions that she meets Alex, a female blacksmith with whom she has an immediate connection, and soon the pair fall madly and passionately in love.
This meeting is their destiny, and ensures that the duty of protecting Ro and saving her from a terrifying fate falls to Alex. Amidst their deepening love, Alex unselfishly does what needs to be done, potentially risking both of their lives so that she may also save them.
After Bellaria’s immediate introduction, I did feel as though the book took a little too long to take us back to the Fae storyline. By the time the fantasy was reintroduced I had almost forgotten I was reading a fantasy novel. That’s not to say that the early part of the story wasn’t also good reading – it was – but it wasn’t until the magic and ‘Fae-ness’ was brought back in that I was really hooked.
Having said that, if your reading preferences include a bit of fantasy and magic, some evil plotting, really hot lesbian sex and two strong, independent women falling crazy in love – then I believe that Ladysmith by Rhavensfyre is just the book for you.