From Publishers Weekly
British author Hanley pens a romantic royal tale of intrigue in the tradition of King Arthur. Princess Torina, "eyes sparkling, hair wild," is the only child of hard-hearted warrior King Kareed. After the king defeats the peaceful monarch of Bellandra, he brings home the country's famous sword and gives to his daughter a magic crystal and Landen, the prince of Bellandra, to be Torina's slave. What begins as an uneasy friendship between Landen and Torina grows into a bond of trust when the girl saves his life due to her ability to see the future in the magic crystal. Years later the two become estranged when Landen informs Torina that her lover, Vesputo, is deceiving her and has only ambitions to the throne. Vesputo turns vicious, and both she and Landen are forced to leave the country. They separate, travel far and wide, and eventually find themselves major players in a complicated political plot with Vesputo at its center. This is a lengthy novel, and the narrative's vacillation between different locations and points of view becomes disorienting; the pacing also suffers from fits and starts. However, Hanley's characters are heroic and vulnerable, smart and hot-blooded. The romance rings true and the action sings with excitement: the climax literally comes down to the executioner's scaffold in the penultimate chapter. Fans of romance and the Round Table genre will be swept up in the plot. Ages 12-up.

Sending to silmarillion. Enjoy!

received today - and thank you very much , NeedSun, for the extremely fast delivery. i'll read it as soon as i can (wich means in a week or two :)).

i had thought it was a fantasy novel (there was a magc artifact and the usual setting of kingdoms and royalty, etc) but this is mainly a romance story. young princess torina frees the captive prince of a conquered kingdom, then the boy gets a soldier's training he always rejected. they grow up more or less together and the boy falls inlove(unanswered). the princess also gets from her father a magic, seer's crystal she keeps secret until most of the ones interested in using it find out about it and try to put it to work in their favour. the magic sword is hidden and surfaces only once in the story - without having any impact whatsoever in it.
the villain general murders the king (torina's father and landen's father killer) and stages a fake wedding involving the princess - now escaped and living in a peasants village as a seer. landen makes a name for himself in the high king's army. they come together again and (of course) realise they actually love each other. eventually the villain is punished and and love conquers all.
not too bad for a romance - but really bad for a fantasy (wich it isn't, actually, despite the fantastic elements).
still - it was worth reading it, so thanks again, NeedSun :)

i'll try to keep it going :)

RELEASE NOTES:

Accepted by Lauraloo29 in a bookrelay. Sending it to Morsecode :)

Enjoy!

I'm completely confused about why I'm getting this book -- accepted by lauraloo for me? :o -- but I am very happy because it is a wishlist book!

Thanks so much, silmarillion and lauraloo29!

I had a great excuse to read this book this weekend - I'm trying to keep on track for my reading goal for this year (200 books) so with the end of June I wanted to push through to reach 100 books. This one looked like it would be a quick read so I decided to give it a whirl.

I thought the book was just OK. I liked it, but I thought it could have been better. Torina was an interesting and sympathetic character, as was Landen. The story, however, seemed to be wrapped up way too quickly at the end.

I'm going to loan this book to my coworker.

My co-worker, morsecode, lent me this book and I have to agree with all the other comments made previously... except that I didn't find it much of a romance. Sure the two main characters were in love... but they didn't even know each other (as adults) until practically the last page!

I liked Landen and Torina's special skills... but I would have liked to see these characters use their strengths together for some part of the plot.

And without spoiling the plot -- I have to say King Dahmis's character makes no sense at the end in regards to Torina and Landen.

Personally I think the author actually got bored when it came to the romance she had so deliberately set up and decided to just chuck it all at the end...

Ho hum...

This book is back with me now.
I'm going to see whether I can't find someone to RABCK this book to...
otherwise I'll probably wild release it.


Update, 11 July:
I'm mailing this book to Czersk tomorrow. I hope she and Zarylia enjoy it.

The book is here! And in good time too-- I am leaving for Argentina in two weeks, which gives me time to read it before I hand it off to Zarylia. Thank you Morsecode for sharing with us!

I absolutely devoured this book. I was in a bad mood when I picked it up, and this story made me forget all of my problems. There's nothing like a somewhat predictable adventure/love/magic story to make a person feel better :D Whatever faults it might of had, I didn't care. It was a great escape. And I loved Torina's character- she had such spunk.

I have passed this along to Zarylia, and it is now in Buenos Aires. Thanks everyone for the book!

Highly predictable and highly enjoyable. I am having a hard time deciding which side I would choose in the romance vs. fantasy debate. It certainly didn't develope the romance very much, but it also didn't develope the fantasy very much. I guess that leaves me back at predictable but enjoyable. I wish there had been more spark between Torina and Landen though. Even for young adult readers, it was a little lacking in chemistry.

Once I get a chance to reinforce the binding and front cover I will be putting this on the common bookshelf at the office of my study abroad program. I'll journal it again once I've dropped it off.