Review: Entwined Realms

Entwined Realms, Volume One
by Danielle Monsch
Published December 16, 2014 by Zondervan
Source Netgalley

Computers run on magic, unicorns roam the city parks as bicyclists and joggers pass by, and you might bump into an elf as you walk to the corner coffee shop. Welcome to the New Realms, where sword & sorcery exist alongside modern technology - the result of the Great Collision. Magic is mundane, and mythical creatures are commonplace.

Underneath the placid calm, though, immortal enemies plot the ruination of this new world. Can the Necromancers be stopped? Or will chaos and destruction once again reign?

It all began with the Great Collision—when the human realm and the realm of magic collided, leaving them hopelessly entwined for all time. On that very same day, Larissa Miller is born. Her policeman father and overprotective older brothers are determined to live in a human-only city, attempting to ignore all the races now sharing their world. Though Larissa had been curious about elves, dwarfs, werewolves, and the other magical peoples, she knew nothing of them until in her twenty-sixth year she is attacked by a mob of zombies.

Thus begins Stone Guardian, the first book of the Entwined Realms. Larissa is plucked from danger by Terak, a gargoyle who had been charged with watching over her. Also watching are Fallon and Laire, Guild warriors. These three fight off zombies, orcs, direwolves, goblins, and other evil creatures—all determined to capture Larissa and carry her back to the mage who commands them. And while all this is going on, a romance is developing between Larissa and Terak.

The other long work in the collection was The Cage King, set in the same world, but not including Larissa and Terak. Rather, Fallon and Laire recruit Nalah into the Guild and train her in both physical and magical skills. She is then sent out to participate in underground cage fights, renewing her romance with Esh, the Cage King, while searching for a magic object that had been stolen from the Guild.

Entwined Realms, Volume One is a repackaging of the first four stories in Danielle Monsch's Entwined Realms paranormal and urban fantasy series: a novel, a novella, and two short stories. I really liked this book—up to a point. What ruined it for me was that I was turned off by the explicit description of lovemaking that popped up near the end of Stone Guardian and again in The Cage King. The plot and characters and the setting were amazingly well done and it's the beginning of a series that I would have very much enjoyed continuing to read—except it's just too much for my taste.

★★★☆☆

Note that I received a free copy of Entwined Realms, Volume One from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.