One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sylph Series, Book 3
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 336 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Dorchester Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


Six years ago, a young girl named Solie was brought to a castle to be a sacrifice, to die at the hand of a pompous king's son so he could enslave a battle sylph, a magical creature from another dimension. Things didn't go so well for the son or the king. They went much better for Solie, who named the battler and became his love and master.

He made her his queen.

For six years Solie has ruled as queen of Sylph Valley. The battle sylphs protect their queen and the hive above all things. Their power is legendary, their rages terrorize. They are the unstoppable force and the immovable object in one fiercely protective being of unimaginable power. It's been a peaceful six years. No one dares try to cross the battlers in Sylph Valley. At least, until now.

A new source of evil slips into the valley and like a pestilence, spreads death and decays hope, stirs fear and incites rage. This evil twists the lives of those it touches, creeping, clawing its way ever closer to its goal, destroying whatever is in its path in a carefully plotted and insidious plan to kill the queen. This is an evil that not even the mightiest of battle sylphs can defeat. Unfortunately, not even battlers can defeat what they can't sense...even when it's right in front of them.


I'm such a huge fan of this series. I have been right from the beginning. It's such a unique and brilliant blend of complex characters and imaginative storylines ripe with dashes of humor and devious machinations by both the good and the not-so-good. There is intrigue, action, magic, and elements that are deeply disturbing for their grim darkness and viciousness. The first two books in the series were among the most memorable of all the books I read last year, and this one is no different in that respect.

I have to hand it to McDonald, there are aspects of the plot of this book that are utterly brilliant in concept and execution. The conflict in the plot was less expansive than that of the previous book, where a whole kingdom needed to be overthrown, but for all its containment, it is chilling and disturbing in ways that churned my stomach in places. The Bad Guy in this book is one of the baddest I've had the pleasure of reading lately, and my heart bled for the victims. Especially Claw, who has seen little more than horror since he crossed over into this world. He's such a tragically broken sylph I couldn't help but feel for him.

Of course, my favorite characters from the series are back. Ril and Leon return from their successful rescue mission of Lizzy (The Shattered Sylph) early in this book, and it's lovely seeing Ril finally finding some peace with both Leon and Lizzy. This book also has a wonderful ensemble case of familiar characters who have great chemistry when they're together, whether it's intermingling in their day-to-day or fighting together against an outside threat. There are also some great new characters that I enjoyed meeting in this book, especially the healer sylph. Her plot threads were a delight that gave new insight into the world the sylph come from.

This book doesn't have the romance thread that existed in the first two books, but I didn't miss it. The romances in this series have never really worked for me because of the young age and the naivety or innocence of the female romantic lead characters. Not having to deal with it in this one was a nice treat.

I wasn't quite as fond of the overall plot of this book as I was the previous one. It felt a bit lacking to me in both depth and complexity in comparison, and it dragged a little for me in the middle. It also didn't leave me feeling the same sense of urgent suspense that I did when Leon and Ril were trying to find and rescue Lizzy, though that's not really a criticism, just commentary on how much I love the characters and the dynamic between Leon and Ril. I felt Justin's ancillary plotline was painfully predictable (I saw that one coming from the middle of the previous book) and surprisingly two dimensional. It could have been better woven into the other threads and developed earlier to keep it interesting, but it seemed too in-your-face to manage much beyond surface conflict. And few of the characters in this book really bugged me, too.

I've never been a Solie fan. She was far too girlishly innocent and naive for me in the first book and though it's obvious that she's matured some, she still strikes me as someone both immature in her rule and not all that bright in the grand scheme. Heyou, her battler, flat-out annoys me. He's always been young, but he seemed both young and overly goofy in this one, like a cross between a twelve-year-old on a sugar rush and an excited puppy. Heyou is the queen's consort, I'd think he'd start maturing at least a little over six years. That didn't seem to be the case here.

I also struggled with Gabralina's character and her battler Wat. I totally recognize and freely admit that my issue with them is a major personality flaw within myself, but I had a struggle sympathizing with characters who go beyond simple-minded and slightly touched in the head into the realm of too stupid to live. Both Gabralina and Wat fell into the latter category in several places in this book and I had difficulty maintaining sympathy for either of them. Well...until Wat's situation deteriorated to such an extent that I couldn't help but feel ill at what was being done to him. He had all my sympathy then.

All of that brings me to an issue that I've been struggling with throughout this series, despite how much I've enjoyed each of the books. It's an issue that really came to a head in this book. I'm getting very uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the roles of the female characters in this series. They all seem to be young, innocent, and so naive it's painful, or they are not-so-young and have been victimized in one way or another. Some have gone from one to another as part of the story. None of the women in this series have any power independent of the sylphs, and they are often written as lacking intelligence, worldliness, or self-sufficiency. They tend more towards being untried, inexperienced, naive, silly, or gullible.

Solie may be queen, but from what I've seen she's too kind of heart, too gentle and timid to rule her people. Mace's widow embodies several stronger characteristics, but she's been set apart as an atypical female in their culture, and she's both older and not a main character. Leon's daughter Lizzy has the potential to be a sharp, savvy woman, but she's untried and untrained, and at only eighteen, she's still a girl to me.

There are just no strong female heroines who have any significant presence in this series. The women have battlers to fight their fights, and they're protected and cossetted by the sylph who are their mates and by the hive battlers in general. Despite having a girl as queen, the society seems feudal and patriarchal. That aspect of the series has never appealed to me, but seemed even more pronounced in this book. I'd kill for one single large-and-in-charge heroine capable of using wit and wiles to her advantage in this series.

Still, I love the series, and this book has many wildly excellent scenes with tense plotting and lovable characters. Parts of the book broke my heart, parts made me whoop in triumph. I'm dying to know what comes next. I'd highly recommend readers new to the series start it from the beginning, though. No amount of exposition, no matter how carefully woven into the story, can make up for being introduced to these characters and sinking into their relationships with them as they develop, seeing their journey towards a mutual destiny begin, and experiencing it all with them as it goes. Queen of the Sylphs is a strong book and a great installment of a fantastic series that I highly recommend.

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sylph Series, Book 2
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 336 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


It was meant to be nothing more than a small taste of freedom, a tiny rebellion against overprotective guardians, and a chance for a girl on the cusp of womanhood to stretch her wings a little. Eighteen-year-old Lizzy Petrule and her friend Loren slipped away from the group who traveled to Para Dubh from their home in Sylph Valley and headed to the docks. They wanted to see the ocean. Lizzy was unaware of the danger, of the nature of some of the people who do business at the waterfront of the much larger, harsher kingdom. Loren's water sylph Shore whisked Loren away from the large, scary man she'd been flirting with moments before he lunged for them both. Lizzy, not having a sylph, wasn't so lucky.

When Leon Petrule and the battle sylph Ril returned from the queen's mission, Solie pulled Leon aside to break the news that his daughter had been taken by slavers from a distant kingdom. The battle sylphs she had sent out to find Lizzy had come back with a bit of information on the kidnapper's likely destination, but empty-handed. Heartbroken and with little hope on how to find her, Leon returns to his family to mourn.

Sensing his master's misery, Ril races to the family's side, and when he finds out Lizzy has been taken, he digs down deep, to the proof of a secret he's held close to his heart for years. He's loved Lizzy since he watched her being born. She saved him from the madness of seeing his master kill the woman he'd come through the gateway to claim and since then he's waited for her to grow, to mature. He'd wanted her to be his queen, but Solie ascended instead. He nearly killed himself making Lizzy his master.

And he can find her.

Leon, Ril, and a young man named Justin travel south to the edge of the world, to a kingdom of unimaginable size and power, with thousands of sylph, several hundreds of which are the deadly battle sylphs. They go to find Lizzy and bring her home. They go because they love her. They go...and what they find, what they experience, what they risk, and what they lose will change their lives forever.

I have a confession to make. I'm an addict. It's horrible, I know, but it's true. I can't get enough. I'm completely hooked on battle sylphs. It's not an easy addiction to have, either, as you get the oddest looks when you finally do the responsible thing and try seek help. No one seems to understand quite what you're talking about and people start whispering to each other and pointing at you when they read the little questionnaire thingie you filled out at the doctor's office. Can't imagine why. And hello...rude!

Alas, I fear I'm doomed to the ravening madness of utter fangirlness. I, of course, blame my sylph dealer, L.J. McDonald. It's all her fault. How dare she create this unique, breathlessly original world and populate it so deftly with these amazing, tortured creatures who would do anything for the love of a woman? How could she be so callous to her innocent readers by spinning such dastardly epic tales of slavery, hatred, fear, and murder, of the battle against tyranny and oppression, and the equality of women in a society that views them as chattel? Does she have no conscience? That much awesome storytelling just isn't legal!

This particular kick-ass, gut-wrenching book prominently featured the two most intriguing characters from the first book among its ensemble cast. Adviser and enforcer for the queen, Leon Petrule and his battle sylph Ril, the broken warrior, have a relationship defined by a complex mix of conflicting emotions. Their master/battler history is brutal and tragic, and even six years after Leon's awakening to the true nature of the battle sylph and his understanding of what he did to the battler he loves, their relationship is still a quagmire of cautious partnership and long-remembered pain. For me, it's the most brilliant aspect of both books so far.

That doesn't mean I didn't love the storyline of this book, of course. It started out with some genuinely humorous moments, and became more and more serious as the book progressed, and I found myself utterly captivated by what I was reading. By the time Leon, Ril, and Justin got to Meridal you couldn't have pried my Kindle from my hand with a crowbar, and you would've been wise to watch your back had you even tried.

McDonald has an impressive ability to make irredeemable actions somehow forgivable, and irredeemable characters ultimately lovable. Lest we forget, the reason Leon Petrule, one heck of a protagonist, has a battle sylph at all is because he brutally, if expediently, slaughtered a young woman years ago. To say his past is checkered is oversimplifying to the nth degree. He so deeply regrets his actions, and feels such remorse over not only what he did to the girl, but the effect it had on Ril, that he remains sympathetic. With even the tiniest miss in his character development, his past atrocity would have been an ultimate deal breaker for me. It's testament to McDonald's mad skills that it is not.

Not every single aspect of the world and this book was quite as rosy. While I wasn't nearly as put off by Lizzy as I was by Solie in the first book, she still wasn't my favorite character, and I'm still not fond of how young the lead female characters have been in this series. Lizzy's immaturity, naivety, and ignorance, and the brutal consequences of all three, frustrated me not because it wasn't well written, but because I flat out don't like damsels in distress. I thought her character functioned better as a symbol than an actual person in this book, though I can't help but be thrilled for her and Ril.

As in the first book, my pleasure with the ensemble cast and my love for the storyline far outweighs my minor grievances. Eapha and Tooie were fantastic, and the paired up group of battle sylph and their loves among the concubines was a delight in both character and story. And I just can't say enough about Leon and Ril, though I thought Justin was a toss. His involvement occasionally seemed contrived and heavy-handed. I missed the characters I became so fond of in the previous book who weren't included, or were included in this book only briefly, but the strength of the story and the new characters thoroughly entertained.

I'm hooked on this series. Completely, irrevocably hooked. I'd caution readers about one thing, though. This series is considered by some to be fantasy romance. I can understand why, but I disagree. Yes, there was a relationship between Solie and Heyou in the first book, and yes, there is one between Lizzy and Ril in this one, but while the development and evolution of those two relationships may be the driving force behind the story that's written in each case, the actual forming and evolution of those relationships are strictly ancillary plot threads that remain on the fringes of a layered plot full of action and suspense. If you go in expecting or wanting a more traditional romance arc, you could be disappointed. For my personal tastes, it's a plus, because like I said, both Solie and Lizzy were very young in age and in action, and seemed closer to little girls than grown women - so much so in parts that I had to force myself not to think about their age. Having a major romance plotline with them in the lead roles wouldn't have appealed to me.

This book, on the other hand, did appeal to me. It gave me the perfect hit of sylph love. For an addict such as myself, we live for those hits. The good news is that the next opportunity to satisfy my addiction will be out in a few weeks, with the third book in the series, Queen of the Sylphs set to release mid-September in paperback (according to Amazon.com) and late September for the Kindle (according to the publisher). The best news is I have an ARC of QotS that was provided to me courtesy of Dorchester Publishing and NetGalley.

Just...um...ignore my girly squeal and shimmy of pleasure.

I am resolute in my determination not to cave to the sylph withdrawal, however, and to hold off reading and reviewing QotS until closer to the release date. Who knows how long it'll take to get my next fix after what I'm sure will be QotS delight? I must manage my battle sylph addiction! I can do this. I'm strong willed! I will not give in!!

*Glances at her Kindle, pursing her lips and muttering under her breath*

I'm gonna fold like wet cardboard.

The Sylph Series:

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sylph Series, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 336 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Dorchester Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.



It was late the night a young farm girl named Solie slipped away from her family farmstead in the kingdom of Eferem to avoid her father's insistence on an arraigned marriage. The innocent seventeen-year-old ran towards her aunt, the one woman she knew who may understand her plight and assist her in getting away. Solie didn't make it. Before she even got close, she was kidnapped by the king's men, bound and carted off to the castle. Her arrival was witnessed by an air sylph master named Devon, grim with understanding as he stood waiting to do his job and full of pity for the unknown girl who would lose her life so a deadly and fearsome battle sylph could be bound to the prince.

As the air ship he was waiting on finally arrived, and Airi, his air sylph, went to help the ship land, Devon was exposed to even more dangerous information. The wounded ship carried two battlers and their masters. The king had sent them together to fight someone or something, and that alone was rare enough to have made him wonder...if it hadn't been for the fear. Devon was too petrified by the hate spewing from the battlers to dare question the events of the night, and even if he had, it wasn't likely the battle sylph masters would deign answer him.

Then again, even with the cold facts it's doubtful Devon would have had the first clue that before the sun rose on another day, his life in Eferem would be over. Soon enough he would realize that his reality was about to alter dramatically...and forever...and his future was aligned with the shocking destiny of one young girl who will be queen and the battle sylph who loves her.

As a long time and ravenous reader, I've always understood that there are and will always be books that I love, books that I loathe, and a majority that fall somewhere in between. Occasionally, though, there are books like The Battle Sylph, books that go beyond that scale and garner a much rarer response. They excite me.

The Battle Sylph isn't a perfect book. It had characters that I wasn't crazy about. Solie, and to a lesser degree Heyou, annoyed me with their youth and inexperience and left me wondering at the intended market for the series, because I kept getting a Young Adult vibe from both of them that set my teeth a little on edge. Solie is, after all, only seventeen and Heyou described as very young for his kind.

Fortunately, this fantasy book features an ensemble cast instead of offering them up as the two lead characters, so my irritation with Solie and my occasional exasperation with Heyou was muted by a few characters who really shined. I adored Ril and Leon, loved their backstory (while tragic and horrific in parts, it was powerful and intense), their conflicts, and their relationship development, and was captivated by each of them as characters - both solely and together - as their situations evolved through the book. Mace was fantastic. There was something about him I found particularly compelling, though he had less angst around him than Ril did. Galway and Devon were also nice characters who added much to the story, and I can't help but hope that we see more of Thrall in the future. And that Claw finds some peace.

Okay, I admit it...I'm a sucker for the battle sylphs.

Back to the book. Like I said, not perfect. Besides the characters, I also had had some issues with the story, and felt it lacked a little complexity in the plot conflicts as the world was being developed and fleshed out. With fantasy favorites including such notables as Anne Bishop's Black Jewels and spanning back to my younger days with Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar and Piers Anthony's Xanth, complexity of plot and creativity of world building has to go pretty far to make an impact on me. While I liked what McDonald put forth in this debut, I think there were aspects that could have been more clearly defined and widely expanded in both world and story.

And yet...

The Battle Sylph excited me. It did. Unlike some widely popular fantasy heavy hitters that inundate a reader with complex political intrigue and mind-melting social and cultural minutia, which I tend to find a bit overwhelming for various reasons, I found the book eminently readable with its casual and contemporary narrative, and thought the world created around the story was unique and original. I love the idea of the sylphs, the concept of a patriarchal feudal society in which women are little more than pawns and chattel, easily expendable and too forgettable when it comes to snagging powerful warriors from another dimension to serve a corrupt monarchy, only to have the true nature of the sylph and their relationship with women indicative of something else entirely.

There's lots of potential for fantastic conflict there as the growing awareness of the truth demands a massive paradigm shift and huge change in the traditional power structure on a fundamental level.

All of those heady points left me hungry for more of the fascinating world and the characters I fell in love with. More than that, though, they left me excited for a new series that may not be quite as layered and complex as some of my fantasy favorites just yet, but definitely has the potential to be so. I can't wait to start The Shattered Sylph, which I quickly snagged for my Kindle even before I finished the last page in this one. The Battle Sylph is a wonderful fantasy debut that left me happy to have come across it and thrilled to see what comes next. And very, very excited.