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The Heart Of War (2010)

by Lisa Beth Darling(Favorite Author)

4.11 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0615424686 (ISBN13: 9780615424682)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Moon Mistress Publishing

series

OF WAR

review 1: I won a copy of "The Heart of War" by author Lisa Beth Darling from a book give-away from LibraryThing. I actually won this copy on April 2, 2014 and had it sitting in my to read file on My Precious (LOTR referrence). Having several book review deadlines, I just never did get an opportunity to read this little steamy jewel, until now.When I created my blog, I orginally said I didn't want to read/review erotica. I just didn't want my new baby to be overwhelmed with this genre. I had read a couple erotica in the past and was not too impressed. It reminded me of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am style of porn. To me, I like a book to have depth.It was my best friend that demanded I read "Knight & Play" by Kitty French. It was after reading this series, I found that there wa... mores actually some good books that fell into this genre that had more than just sex.With all that said, "The Heart of War" is one of those books that falls into this category. So, before I begin my review of this hot piece of work, I want to give a warning. It is for 18+. There is graphic sex scenes, rape and violence. If this is something that doesn't sit well with you, then I wouldn't suggest this book.*****"The Heart of War" starts off with Ares God of War on his Greek Island. He has been exiled from Olympus by his father Zeus and forced to live amongst the mortals. Ares not only lives for conflict and war with the humans. He's also a sex craved God.The only way that any women are ever brought to his island is if he seeks them out. All of them are lost, abandoned and loney women. Each has their place in his little heram that he has created. With all the woman around him, one has declared herself #1...Katrina.Thing start to get heated up when a strong odor is detected from Ares. It's an odor that he hasn't ever smelled before on his island. On a quest to discover what is going on, he finds that a woman has washed upon his shores.Unsure who this mystical woman is, he summons his Uncle Neptune to get to the bottom of this. Neptune reassures him that he had nothing to do with this lost sole. With nobody around to say who she is, he takes her back to his cave to figure out this mystery woman.Magdelena MacLeod (Alena) wakes up to find herself in a bed, in an unknown place. She doesn't know how she exactly got here, where she is, or if she is even safe. All that she knows is that she isn't floating in the ocean anymore.With Ares already spying that she has a golden chasity belt around her waist, he starts to question who she actually is and who she belongs to. With the celtic designs on the belt, he has a feeling that she must be a woman of some importance and will be missed by her master.Ares soon learns that this woman, who is in his possession is not just any woman. First, she is mystical. With long silver hair an beauty as he has never seen, he is simply taken. Plus, he discovers that she is a force to be reckoned with. Where all other women are submissive to him, this woman is defiant. She stands up to him, puts him in his place, refuses to be ordered around and shows that she is just as independent and capable of survial on her own.It's through a series of arguments with his disfunctional family that sits high in Olympus that that they discover she is a Fey. She belongs to Cernunnos the Celtic God of Forest & Death. However a mystery surrounds why she is in chasity and on Ares island.It's Ares that learns that he has the magical touch (IN OH SO MANY WAYS) to remove the chasity belt that has been on Alena for hundreds of years. Once free of her burden, Alena starts to discover that there is something about Ares she can't deny.Not only do the two develop a friendship of sorts, but an affair begins that will rock not only Ares and Alena's little piece of Earth, but also the heavens of Olympus as well.*****Ms. Darling builds such a great story about the relationship of Alena and Ares. We learn so much about who these two amazing and strong-willed individuals are. We learn history of the Gods and how screwed up they actually are.What really makes this story tick is the sex. There is several different things that make this great. One is the "foreplay," if you want to call it that. Alena and Ares are battleing with each other and the sexual tension just keeps building. At one point I just wanted to say, "just get it on!" Then there is the well written love scenes. I'm not going to go into any detail. I can tell you this...I would had been willing to swap places with Alena any time of the day or night.This was a long story at 594 pages. It did take me 3 days to get through it. Not one moment in this book was dull. If it wasn't the bickering and backstabbing of the Gods. You were witnessing jealously of the mortal women. The story was so well written that you could actually transport yourself onto the island and swear you were walking amongst greatness.I will be contacting the author to beg an plead to read more of what she has penned. I want to see how Alena and Ares learn to grow and deal with the adversities that they will be facing. This is going to be one good series to follow
review 2: I was gifted this book in exchange for an honest review. I read this book description and thought to myself- what the hell? I am all over a book where the men are built like gods, likely to have some hot sexual encounters and some love mixed in. We are first introduced to the characters in a way that makes you almost want to hate Ares- God of War. He is abrupt, crass and a sexual pig in a sense. Then you meet Maggie aka Alena who pulls at your heart strings for many different reasons. This book takes you on a journey through the lives of the ancient gods, celtic families, and throws in some interesting paranormal twists. I am going to start discussing some of my dislikes of this book. There were times during this book that I really wanted to fast forward through because I did not know much about the "history" of the gods to know that they were somewhat disgusting in their sexual relationships. I did not expect to read so much of the incestuous history between brothers, sisters, fathers, grandfathers, daughters and such. I did not expect to read scenes of love making between relatives. I felt at times that the author threw in paranormal aspects to be able to code this book into the paranormal genre and I felt some of it was a bit hard to believe. Now having said all that, I am able to over look a lot of the incest for the good of this book. The author was able to create great relationships that I loved to hate within Ares' island and outside of it. I enjoyed watching the relationship progress between Alena and Ares and how their relationship affected the rest of the gods. I think this author put a great spin on the history of the gods to create an addictive story of love, hate, and remorse. All in all I do not feel that the book description above really tells you anything about what this book has to offer. I am interested to see where this story goes and am ready to jump into book 2. I give it 4.5 stars, docking a half a star because of the incest in this book that made me nauseated at times. Review by Bonnie- Admin. less

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