Author Andrew Ashling wrote, "This isn't going to be for everyone. You expect people to learn strange names, words and concepts in weird languages, casually digest half-brothercest annex rape annex domination, your main hero has a few flaws, to put it mildly, and you liberally sprinkle political intrigue over the mixture. This story should come with it's own supply of Pepto-Bismol."

This serves as my review for all three books in the trilogy: Bonds of Hate, Bonds of Fear and Bonds of Blood. The books are long and crammed with detail, Some of the items in the story have strange names and all of the characters do have long and curious names making them very difficult to keep track of especially since the the characters abound. The author on his website states:

"It got out of hand. From a fairly simple narrative it grew into a rather complex epic tale, set in a kind of medieval world, but, and this is important, not our Middle Ages. There are literally dozens of characters. They kept coming, they all had a tale to tell and they wouldn't be denied."

With hundreds of characters, many of them having three names (their titled name, their given name and a nickname) I'm not going to mention them here. Quite a bit of the books consisted of the main characters' thoughts or people discussing their concerns rather than a lot of action and plot advancement. In fact the author on his website wrote:

"I've deliberately set a slow pace for this story. The characters often try to assess their situation by engaging in silent monologues. It hardly makes for a fast moving, brisk narrative."

So for those looking for lots of rousing adventure and sword fighting this isn't that sort of book. It examines the plight of two princes who are half-brothers who are sent by their father, a cruel king to do a seemingly impossible task. As Andrew Ashling wrote in introducing the books, it involves incest, rape and domination so I do not consider the following to be a spoiler; however for those who want nothing revealed stop reading this review right now. The brothers enter into an incestuous relationship but the elder half-brother comes home drunk one night and viciously rapes the younger one until he is nothing but blood and pain. The elder one then chains up the boy and treats him cruelly. The younger brother swears that no matter how long it takes he will get revenge.

Through various manipulations the younger brother, while only sixteen and untrained in fighting or leadership , eventually does get the upper hand. (view spoiler)[Once in charge he manipulates the older prince into renouncing his birthright, power and even his name. He renames him 'dog' using an ancient language and treats him like a dog keeping him locked away, naked, and totally helpless. He uses his brother as a sexual receptacle and treats him worse than a slave. He never stops humiliating and degrading and totally dominates the former prince until he no longer thinks of himself as anything but a worthless nonentity. (hide spoiler)] However in this ultimate BDSM Dom/sub relationship both teens claim to love each other.

The young prince convinces the nobles and the towns people to fight a war to defend themselves against barbarians set on raping, pillaging, maiming, torturing and killing them. While various family intrigues, schemes and plots among King, his wife, and their sons are carried out the youngest Prince manages to raise an army and goes into battle. In his fight he has no problem torturing and acting with the utmost cruelty against his foes. The foes are equally ferociously monstrous. If you are squeamish about torture stop reading here.

Do not read further if you do do not want to read about how gruesome the violence in these books get in the murders and mutilations of people. You need a strong stomach to read this book. A 15 year-old boy we come to admire has his genitals cut off and is incessantly cut but not stabbed so that his death will be the most painful. A soldier is forced to tell his secrets by torturing him including burning off his feet. Masses of men have their eyes burned out. A man is stripped naked, has his tongue cut out, has his ears and nose cut off, his teeth smashed and his fingers broken but his kept alive to be live a life as an animal.

To go any deeper into the war and its outcome or the fates of the half-brothers would spoil the story so this is as much warning as I can give about the scheming, depravity, savagery, familial brutality, sadism, ruthlessness, inhumanity, and viciousness entailed in reading the Invisible Chains Bonds of Hate, Bonds of Fear and Bonds of Blood books.

While the closest thing to a gay romance is the relationship between the half-brothers, there is much love making and matchmaking with other characters. The brothers confusion of emotion does reach a resolution at the conclusion. Still it seems hard to think of this a m-m romance fiction. So why did I read the trilogy? The first twelve chapters are available online. Once I had read the first twelve chapters I was intrigued enough to want to see more. So I bought the first book. Having read those 400 plus pages I admit I was hooked. I had too much invested so I bought the second (over 400 pages) then the third book (almost but not quite 500 pages.)

I did enjoy the complex and exceedingly long story. I was unhappy with the way the author mixed old, formal language and then casually tossed around modern phrases and idioms. Some grammar was hard to digest as were a spelling error or two but nothing was seriously off putting. When I couldn't keep track of the scads of people with unpronounceable names I just let it pass. The emotions, motivations, occasional humor, and the plot was enough to carry me through. While I did not like the protagonist I was rooting for him. That seemed to be enough to hold my interest as well as seeing how he would prevail through the insurmountable challenges.

The bonds of treachery is what held this royal family together. There can be no more stories since they must have all killed each other by now. If not, the bonds of insanity would make any future impossible.