Long and Short Reviews

Destiny’s Light by Robyn Wren
The Wild Rose Press
Paranormal Romance
Short story, Sweet
Review by Snapdragon

They’d always been sent to help mortals. Euterpe had longed to return, to provide her gifts to another human. Her chance to go back had come. If she’d known what would happen next she might have had second thoughts. Ceris was a loner, never one to surround himself with others, music was his only source of company. He could feel the words hidden deep inside but could not unlock them from his soul. Could the woman he saves help? By saving her could he save himself? Hounded by the shadows of Hades, will Ceris be able to save Euterpe from the pursuits of the Dark God or will he lose his soul as he fights for her past? As the bond between them grows from a spark to a white hot flame, will their newfound love be enough to save them both from the darkness and bring them into Destiny’s Light.

♥ ♥ ♥

Wren’s next in her Song of the Muses series, “Destiny’s Light,” is a wonderful addition to her super series. Set in the Greco-Roman era, characters include not only your ordinary mortals, but also include influential gods and goddesses of the day- in this case, a poet goddess, Euterpe, figures prominently. Their interests are not always kindly however… and sometimes their in-fighting spills over to affect the human lives and loves (and sometimes they become involved in the lives of humans.) Some, like Hades, are predictably dark … but this story is a line-by-line surprise; unpredictably delightful- and I so don’t want to give one surprise away!

Ceris, the main character, has a beautiful soul - he finds it through his music – and we, as readers, fall for him, just a bit, as we recognize his inner beauty. He jumps to the rescue of this strangely enigmatic woman Kaylena (who we as readers will know more about than he does.) We’ll start to imagine all sorts of possibilities for them – but frustratingly, it seems that there lives will simply never be their own for long enough for good stuff to happen! The wait will make you crazy… and while Ceris is sadly wondering about recovering inspiration, you’ll be hoping ‘Kaylena’ can somehow reach him…

‘Finding the self’ is a theme here, in both an obvious way, but also in a rather subtle way. The parallels give this story a depth that at first is quite unexpected. Wren has an incredible ability to bring characters, set in what seems a very alien landscape, (not only in a historic time, but in some ways divine) but to absolutely successfully bring those characters to life. The setting is important, and even at times, rather evocative, but it never intrudes on the important human interactions. The loves here could be the loves of any time.