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Hour of the Lion (The Wild Hunt Legacy, #1)

Cherise Sinclair

Why we're reading this: Paranormal romance with very steamy sex, surprisingly also with a fairly good plot, good worldbuilding, g…more
[close] Paranormal romance with very steamy sex, surprisingly also with a fairly good plot, good worldbuilding, great dialogue and likeable characters, including a capable and intelligent female protagonist. Warnings: Contains shapeshifters and explicit sex scenes that are well-written but not exactly your vanilla romance variety.

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Mar 01, 2016 Pernilla rated it really liked it

Shelves: romance, smexytimes, paranormal-fantasy

So, I was looking for some nice mindnumbing mush since that is what my mood was like, and thought that sexy paranormal or fantasy romance would be the ticket. I'm a stickler for fantastical literature; contemporary settings rarely manage to capture my interest, but romance isn't a genre I've forayed into very much, unless you count Jane Austen. So I went on the internets and dug up some recommendations and went and got myself a bunch of books. Now, my experience with the romance genre is admitte So, I was looking for some nice mindnumbing mush since that is what my mood was like, and thought that sexy paranormal or fantasy romance would be the ticket. I'm a stickler for fantastical literature; contemporary settings rarely manage to capture my interest, but romance isn't a genre I've forayed into very much, unless you count Jane Austen. So I went on the internets and dug up some recommendations and went and got myself a bunch of books. Now, my experience with the romance genre is admittedly rather limited, but my general impression is that it tends to follow a pretty strict generic pattern with regards to a number of basic concepts, and that it's mostly pretty light on characterisation and worldbuilding, and that the plot is mostly just a more or less rickety (and pretty predictable) vehicle for the troo lurve and the naughty bits.

This is not necessarily a bad thing; sometimes you just want to know exactly what you are getting. And yeah, most of what I had found myself was pretty much that. Some of it was nice and fun, with some good attempts at worldbuilding and characters, and while not exactly great, they were still entertaining and filled their purpose well.

Some of them were so badly written that I didn't manage to get through them. Sorry, but I have my limits even when it comes to mind-numbing mush.

And then I got to Cherise Sinclair and her Wild Hunt Legacy books. And was blown away.

These books pushed all my buttons. Well-paced and engaging, with characters that are complex, likeable and interesting, and so well-written that you can't put them down. I can't remember when I last lost sleep over a book, because I just couldn't stop reading, while late nights flowed into small hours, and then slightly bigger hours, until I realised that I had about two hours of sleep left before I had to get up again. Yes, this happened here. With all three books. I spent entire days immersed in my e-reader, only coming up for food, sleep and cat duties. And when I finished them all I tried to move on to another book, by another author, but eventually set it aside and started reading these books all over again, after just having finished them. That is an even rarer occurrence, for me. Sinclair is simply that good a writer. The world-building, or should I say culture-building (since this is a paranormal setting where the world is the same as ours, but set in a different culture, even a different species), is excellent and believable. It just makes sense, without feeling the least contrived. The romance as well – since the characters and the setting are believable, the romance is too, drawing you in effortlessly without ever making you feel manipulated.

And yes there is sex, and it's very steamy and also very well written. Sinclair is mainly known for her contemporary BDSM (which I have not read and likely won't), but this series is pretty light on that, although there are certainly elements of dom/sub, and of course ménage à trois – which, incidentally, seems perfectly natural because of the cultural setting. The sex manages to be steamy and romantic without ever veering into mushy. Some of the romance elements that might otherwise have made me uncomfortable (or even annoyed) just simply work here – possibly because none of the main characters are actually human. (This is a very minor spoiler for two of the books since it will be apparent very early in the narrative.) And that is another thing that is well done. A lot of paranormal species you read about are really just like humans, but with some special magical abilities or properties. The Daonain are also very similar to humans; similar enough to engage you as a reader, but also different enough to feel like they aren't, in fact, human. It's done subtly but convincingly.

These are stories of redemption and of finding hope, homecomings and growth. And yes, of love. And very, very steamy naughty stuff. :)

I really hope she'll write more books in this series, because there is probably a limited number of times I can reread these before I know them by heart.

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