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The Dark Side Of The Sun (2014)

by Belinda Burke(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1781847843 (ISBN13: 9781781847848)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Totally Bound Publishing

series

Eight Kingdoms

review 1: I was unsure what I was getting into with Belinda Burke’s debut novel ‘Dark Side of the Sun’, since most stories involving the fae that are also very romantically inclined are sadly disappointing –written by authors who have done no research and could care less about the historical accuracy of their prose in favor of more sex and drama centered around loving a magical creature that is in no way human- but I was very, very pleasantly surprised with this novel. Belinda Burke was written a captivating, spellbinding tale, with promise of so much more to come with the rest of its series. It is a novel rich with Fae lore, and accuracy to the time period it is set. There is romance, yes. Actually a very steamy romance between two men, Macsen the Red King of Winters Darkne... moress and Bran the son of Summer’s Queen who was stolen by the Milesian’s to forge for them magic weapons, which was surprisingly… natural. It was neither rushed nor forced, and exactly what I look for in a romance. I would have wished for a slower build was there time, but I also understand this this is a romance novel, and so the relationships do move faster. But what I love most about this book, is that the romance isn’t everything there is; there is a plot –and a deeply interesting one- there. Belinda very quickly introduces us to the fae and the idea of the 8 realms based on the light and dark halves of the seasons; The Red Kingdom being the first place in the novel you visit –a shadowy winter land where the sun never rises and magical creatures from another time dance in celebration. She also introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters. Some deliciously bad, like Dealla the Milesian huntress-princess, hell bent on destroying The Red King and all those who follow him. And some so very loveable, Like Saoirse the young huntress-in-training who’s kindness toward the Sidhe nearly costs her everything. Belinda paints a vivid world with characters who draw real emotion out of you. I grew to care about the characters, the heroes, yes, but almost more about her side characters. I am waiting very impatiently for the rest of this series to be released, and I don’t know if the author will read this, but I can only hope that she includes more of this mysterious world she’s building for us, and the other characters she’s hinted at and teased us with. I know I for one am very emotionally tied with the fate of Saoirse, and am so desperate to know what’s going to happen to this little girl spirited away by the fae. I want to meet the Summer Queen, and see the other realms. I want to get to know the Red Court, and I want to watch Bran fall in love –not just with his smitten king, but with the world around him. This is a series I’ll be following closely, and I recommend it to anyone looking for Historical fantasy, Fae Magic, LGBTQ Romance, or just Romance at all. 10/10, would read again.
review 2: The trouble with most period romances is that the authors seem to think that simply penning in a random date from the far past, a few fancy dresses, and a bit of ye olde butchered English = authentic historical flavour. I picked up this book on a whim. I mean, fairies? Gay fairies? That’s a really un-politically correct bad pun waiting to happen, which it just did. But it piqued my interest for precisely that reason, and after reading it, I have to admit. Belinda Burke knows what she’s talking about.The plot at first glance seems to be a fairly standard distressed-dude-gets-involved-with-dark-saviour routine. But perhaps Burke kept it that way on purpose, because the layers of lore that form the foundation of her plot are rock-solid and need no embellishing to make the story work. The usual tropes of one character needing rescue, a lost child who turns out to be royalty, a saviour whom you’d have doubts about walking off into the night with – they all exist and drive this novel like many others before it, but you barely even realise the fact. Burke has structured her story so firmly around traditional Celtic mythology, that even when her characters are following accepted romantic roads, they’re doing it differently – because they are otherworldly themselves. And that’s the way it should be, because she isn’t writing about human beings, in the main. She is writing, as is asserted from the get-go, about fairies. But she isn’t writing about Tinkerbell, or the nice motherly women from Grimm’s tome. She’s writing about a very precise sub-section of magical beings, about whom exists an entire mythology and sagas – the fae people of ancient Ireland. And since in myth they were a fierce, alien race that existed to screw with humans for amusement when poked, and sometimes even when not poked, that’s precisely what they are in her novel as well. But the biggest plus for me? Not only is the portrayal of fae completely accurate – so is the history of their time. In fact, the book more or less begins with a reference to a fae myth, a myth that later turns out to be one of the driving forces of the plot, and foreshadows lots of interesting things for future books. When an author manages to work their history into their story like THAT, they’ve not just got my attention, but also my respect. I’ve read good books by good authors who did their research and then discarded in favour of telling the story they wanted to tell, and thus saved themselves many inconveniences, I’m betting. But Burke works strictly within the limits of what her history allows. If the history outlaws a course of action – or dictates a choice, then so it is in her book. That’s why the essential simplicity of the plot doesn’t make any difference – because she’s writing it to match an extremely complicated and oft-senseless mythological history. And as the cover notes that this is part of the Eight Kingdoms series, I’m guessing she’s doing so deliberately, because she needs to maintain the status for at least...seven more (?) books to come.Personally, I’m hoping they do come. Fascinating plot depth aside, the characters are a joy to read. The hero, Bran, is a truly vulnerable figure of softness that has been jaded by ill-use, and by a life no one would want to live. He’s one of the few distressed-type of romantic protagonists who don’t annoy you by being weak, or stupid, or god help us, “feisty” in the face of their circumstances. Bran faces his life with a quiet sort of dignity, knowing that while he has to stoop a lot to have things be bearable, there are still lines he won’t cross, for the sake of his soul. You’re going to want to cuddle him. A lot. And Macsen as the morally ambiguous, bloodthirsty Red King is exactly what an authentic fae ought to be. He’s pure bestial instinct moulded into a beautiful form and then sharpened on the rather odd restraint of boredom. He’s not like us, and he doesn’t walk, talk, act, or even think like us. He is supposed to take our breath away and bewilder us – and he does so superbly, making the reader feel one with the hero, Bran, who IS more like us, and is therefore equally fascinated and jarred by Macsen as a human being would be. And yet the book is not a clash of opposites, it is an enmeshing of them, almost as two halves of a picture, complementing each other. There are no stupid misunderstandings or fights to build up sexual tension or drama – the drama is already present in the setting and circumstances of the characters, and the sex...well. The novel breathes sex when it has to, and when it’s done, it’s still there, simmering in the background without distracting from the plot. The secondary characters are equally well-defined, and you’ll gain sympathy for more than a couple of them. My only complaint with the characters is that one of the villains seems a little flat – insane and ruthless and as crazy and a walking horror show of terrifying moral decay, yes, but we never find out why they’re doing what they are. Perhaps Burke plans to elaborate on this further in the coming books. Looking at the way the other characters are written, and most of them are no saints, I’m hoping that’s the case, and that she left it like this simply to whet our appetites for installment number 2. Another flaw I noticed was that in some places the dialogue is a little too elaborate and theatrical, but considering that it’s the author’s first book, some little stiffness in form is to be expected. Overall, I would call this book an excellent example of an intelligent and thoughtfully planned romance. It’s got plot, it’s got a truly likeable protagonist, it’s got love, it’s got sex in appropriate and non-frustrating measures, and bets of all, it’s backed by a mythology that hasn’t been explored in fiction all that well. Capricious as well as enchanting, Dark Side of the Sun embodies the fae it is portraying, and while the book has its few flaws, as a first offering from a new author, it’s truly promising of what she’s going to put out in the future. Plus, it’s a book that you wouldn’t be ashamed to be found reading in public. How many sexy romances can you say THAT about? less

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