The Devil Lancer edition by Astrid Amara Literature Fiction eBooks
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Captain Elliott Parrish of Her Majesty’s 17th Lancers cavalry division finds most details about his assignment in the Crimean peninsula insufferable. Rampant cholera, missing supplies, and inept planning start the British war effort against the Russian Czar’s expansion into Turkish territory on poor footing.
What should have been a swift and decisive summer victory soon drags into a harrowing winter campaign, and Elliott must rally disheartened men through sickness, battle, and starvation. But when he is assigned the additional task of spying on a fellow officer, the inscrutable Cornet Ilyas Kovakin, he finds himself disconcerted and fascinated by both the work and the man.
Rumors surround Ilyas Kovakin, the half-Russian officer who reports to none in his division. People say they’ve seen snakes slithering into his tent at night, that he has another face visible only in certain light, and a penchant for violent acts carried out in darkness, alone. But the truth that Elliot soon discovers is much more dangerous then mere superstition.
For Ilyas, his return to Crimea is colored with the horrors of his past.
Once a mercenary, he has made a terrible mistake and inherited horrifying powers that he can barely control. He feels his hold over his humanity slipping away daily, and fears that salvation may already lay beyond him when the cheerful Captain Parrish catches his attention. Among men who hate him and superiors who covet his brutal power, Ilyas finds the young captain's charming company almost irresistible.
But Ilyas knows that the closer he is drawn to Elliot the more he will endanger them both.
The Devil Lancer edition by Astrid Amara Literature Fiction eBooks
I have to preface this review by saying that The Archer's Heart by Astrid Amara remains the best M/M fantasy I've ever read and stands as one of my top three favorite books to this day. Because of that, I have the highest respect for this author and consider her easily on par with some of the best writers out there. She really deserves to be with a big publishing house. One only wonders if her books dealt with M/F relationships how things might be different. It shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is.Having said that, I wanted to give this book five stars, but I just couldn't. I'd been waiting for Amara's next fantasy since The Archer's Heart and when this book became available, I was beyond excited. Unfortunately, my experience with this book wasn't the same. I realize that it's a completely different story, but I was expecting to be swept away again to exotic locations with incredible characters with a driving plot that had me compulsively turning pages from the very first one. That didn't happen here. Amara's outstanding voice and writing style are on every page, but it was problems with pacing, structure and plotting that made it difficult for me to get invested in this story.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This book is just over 300 pages and for the first third, at least 100 pages, the two main characters, Elliot and Ilyas, have virtually no interaction with each other except for some procedural dialogue for half a page a few times. With no dynamics between them, it became difficult to understand them as characters and get emotionally invested in them as individuals or as a potential pair. They just don't interact. What does happen is lots and lots of descriptions about troop maneuvers, rain, rations, dysentery, marching and more maneuvers. Like the troops, this stretch of chapters was a long, hard slog. A few minor developments occur, but nothing of major significance.
While this left the plot feeling virtually inert through this section, it was also completely void of suspense. This is because the story's antagonist isn't even apparent until the halfway point in the book. While all the maneuvers are going on, it appears that the British colonels are deliberately placing their troops in harm's way in various battles in order to get most of them killed for some unnamed reason. It's clear by Colonel West's ordering of Elliot to spy on Ilyas' activities that the military brass is aware of the ghost coffins. I thought for a while that it might be government/military corruption that was to be the opposing force, but the threat wasn't immediate enough and didn't have a face. All great antagonists are distinct characters, not abstract conspiracies. It turns out that Ilyas' brother, Alisher, was the true antagonist, and the military played an unrelated, secondary antagonistic role. The problem here is that this is not revealed until Chapter 15 in a book that has only 28 chapters. Alisher makes one brief appearance before this point, but there is no indication of his connections or motives. With no real opposing force or presence, the plot lacks any real tension in the entire first half of the book. It's just Elliot snooping around spying on Ilyas, oh, and more maneuvers. The good news is that once Chapter 15 arrives, things really start to pick up and Amara regains her page-turner reputation.
Even so, as the reveals begin to be presented within a tighter, quicker presentation, a lot of things didn't make sense, especially with continuity and plot points. I was waiting for a unique or grand explanation as to how Ilyas got possessed by his demon. Because the entity was an ancient Greek demon and son of a goddess, Ilyas must have some unique quality or backstory as to why the creature chose him, right? The real explanation that Ilyas and his gang were tour guides in Europe who robbed some of their unsuspecting tourists and inadvertently got possessed by opening the ghost coffins they'd stolen was beyond anticlimactic. They were just poor lugs who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the same time, the reader is told that the tourists were given the ghost coffins as souvenirs by monks at the temple they'd just toured. It's never explained how the monks came into possession of the ghost coffins or why they would give such dangerous artifacts to just anyone. "Maybe they didn't know what they were" doesn't work here. It's also never explained how the demons were captured in the coffins in the first place, who did it and why. Again, this is another moment for rich backstory that's left void. It seems that things "just happen" in may places in this book for no other reason but to keep the story moving.
Speaking of things "just happening", Ilyas appears at one point near the end and just happens to have all the lost pieces of the broken vase with no explanation as to how he found them or where they were. For the majority of the story, he's not even looking for them. Never mind that this vase has no real relevance to the story and plays no role in exorcising Ilyas. Likewise, Elliot spends much time trying to decipher the meaning of the carvings on the vase, which are never revealed to the reader. They just don't matter. At the same time, Elliot just happens to assume things from the Greek symbols on the ghost coffins that couldn't possibly be extrapolated from the limited amount of information he had available to him. It's also unfortunate that Amara included the cliched plot device of a "grizzeled old woman in the seedy part of town who knows all the local lore and has the answers you need". She even works in an apothecary. (At least she wasn't a fortuneteller). In this case, it was Grabhor who not only tells Elliot and Ilyas about an underground temple they must go to, but it just so happens the French troops are digging trenches in the VERY spot where the temple is located. How great is it that those troops have already done 99% of the work for Elliot and Ilyas? Before they leave her backroom lair, Grabhor gives Elliot a necklace that prevents any demons from coming near him. Wow. She might as well have given him kryptonite. Because Elliot had a catch-all, fool-proof protection device against any onslaught by a demon, he was never in any real danger. This was another suspense killer. Strangely, at times, Alisher and other demons were able to make physical contact with Elliot while he was in possession of the necklace, which made no sense and seemed to violate the system of magic established in the book. It's also never explained how Ilyas, who also had a demon inside him, could get close to and interact with Elliot while he had the necklace on under his clothes or in his pocket/pouch. It was made clear that the necklace repels demons, not just during an attack. When Elliot and Ilyas finally get to the French trenches to dig, guess what? They just so happen to sink their shovels into the very spot where the 4ft x 3ft stone door is to the underground chamber. No searching necessary. While underground, Elliot copies some extremely important glyphs from a wall. Much is made of them and he's nearly killed in the process of getting them, but he never deciphers them and the reader isn't told what they mean. They're inconsequential to the plot. This entire sequence was unnecessary and didn't move the plot forward.
In spite of all the inconsistencies and deus ex machina devices providing our heroes with quick fixes, the plot is moving along, but around Chapter 24, we're back at camp talking about horses and rations, and the momentum grinds to a halt in a way that's jarring. Time is wasted on scenes such as Elliot and Ilyas having dinner at some outpost where nothing is revealed. So many pages are spent on this irrelevant information that by the time the plot picks up again, it feels very rushed to the point where problems get solved in a single paragraph. It takes Elliot barely this amount of space to find the final grand temple, where the finale will take place, which he seems to literally stumble upon and just find. It really begins to feel like the author just wanted to get the story over with because the last two or three chapters are broken up into more, increasingly smaller subsections than any other. Events happen and are gone in a flash giving a very rushed feeling to a book that was extremely slow on the takeoff. This rushed presentation near the end really hurts the final battle between Elliot, Alisher and Ilyas. It's quite disappointing in its brevity and leaves the reader feeling cheated. The characters themselves deserved a more worthy victory. It would seem that a story about Greek goddess, Eris, and her demonic children of destruction begs for a huge finale, but in her rush to wrap things up, Amara doesn't provide one. Another opportunity lost.
It also made no sense that as the story progressed, Ilyas was supposed to be falling into deeper states of possession and losing more and more control to his demon, making him increasingly more dangerous. Oddly, as the story goes on, he becomes more affectionate, loving and understanding of Elliot. While this serves the M/M romance, it directly contradicts the plot device. Yes, Ilyas does seclude himself in a cabin in the woods away from Elliot, but only for about one chapter and near the very end. I also didn't buy that the grand motive of Alisher and his demonic gang was to keep the Crimean war going. Really? I would think that as the sons of a goddess, their goal would be much bigger, such as fanning out over the earth to create worldwide chaos. I didn't feel an urgency to stop the demons in this book because outside the romantic subplot, the stakes just weren't high enough. It also seemed illogical that the British military would want to weaponize the demons by infecting their own troops with them and capitalizing on their powers and strength. They knew how uncontrollable Ilyas was with a demon inside him. For logical, military leaders who are experts in calculating risk, this seemed implausible.
Unfortunately, Ilyas' attempt to rescue Elliot from his court martial prison cell elicited a few eye rolls. Even being half British, Ilyas would have had a distinct Russian countenance and with his dark features would never have passed for a Brit, even in uniform. At the same time, it was preposterous and an insult to readers to suggest that Ilyas did his best to "drop his Russian accent" and that somehow, that was enough to fool the guard on duty to hand Elliot over to him? Unless Ilyas went to acting school to learn how to lose his accent, this just could never happen, but it did. It "just happened".
I feel that this book would have certainly benefited by being written against a different backdrop. The Crimean war holds no importance over this story, and there's no reason it has to take place during this time. That would have eliminated all the chapters about maneuvers and battles that contributed nothing to the main plot or story momentum. I also found it unfortunate that this book mentioned on many occasions the "perversity" of Elliot's actions with Ilyas. Now in the 21st Century, can we finally dispose of these damaging labels when it comes to gay relationships? Yes, I know this is a piece of historical fiction, but even in the era in which this book takes place, everyone didn't think the same way on every issue. Even though many frowned on homosexuality during this time, it would be refreshing to at least have lead characters that are comfortable with their sexuality within themselves and not fretting about it or God forbid, judging themselves.
In spite of all this, I gave The Devil Lancer two stars because there are some good moments in this book, which are, in part, what The Archer's Heart is in it's entirety. To Amara's credit, this was probably a difficult book to write. In a large sense, this book is an archeological mystery with similarities to an Indiana Jones adventure. Mysteries require specific setups and payoffs. Everything has to mean something that fits together into a grand puzzle that amazes the reader when the final piece is slipped into place. That never happens here because the pieces are either irrelevant to the story or just don't fit together. Mysteries are some of the hardest stories to write, if they're well done, not to mention the historical research that had to be done for this book. She also writes the most beautiful, authentic, erotic and honest moments of love between men that I've ever read. I often wonder if she was a gay man in another life....and I mean that as a compliment. I do recommend The Devil Lancer, if only that the reading of it leads the reader back to The Archer's Heart.
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The Devil Lancer edition by Astrid Amara Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
An excellent book, for all the reasons outlined by other readers. Impressions from this story have remained with me, long after finishing it - which is saying something, with the amount of books I get through -) Recommended.
Very good book. Historical, paranormal, M/M...this is my jam!
The author pulls off a trifecta a good historical fiction, satisfying gay romance, and an original fantasy. The end of the novel doesn't seem to allow for a sequel but one can hope. It would be a shame to allow such interesting characters to live in only one book.
One of the best historicals I've read this year, and I loved the way the supernatural element seemed to just flow... well, for lack of a better word, naturally. I haven't read anything with this setting before, and that alone was worth the purchase (which is not to say I didn't love the characters).
This is a very strange book, with a dark historical/fastasy setting and even darker characters. Amara does a professional job of creating an excruciatingly miserable environment, and unusual characters. Her writing is polished. Unfortunately, the setting detail was almost too much, and so unpleasant I found it hard to enjoy the book (no matter how real this was in the past). I didn't feel the attraction between the two main characters was quite believable. I'm a fan of fantasy, and of SF, so normally the premise would suck me in. In this case, I just didn't click with the demon lover as written. He felt way too unlikable to me. The fantasy near the last third of the book began to feel strained. I gave it 3 stars because of that.
Admittedly, I have a read a few other works by this author(Archer's Heart and Half Pass). The writing is impressive with believable historical
facts. The Devil Lancer is no exception. One can feel, sense and envision the absurdity of war conditions, the abuse of power, disastrous
decisions and the suffering of the common soldier. The characters drew in the reader. I thought the romance was properly placed in the story without
talking away from the plot. Although, the ideal of devils literally inside you was an interesting take , it didn't really drive the story for me. What was
of primary interest was the historical background and the interactions of multiple characters.
Astrid did a good job of sustaining the reader's interest despite the fantastical elements.
Really enjoyable m/m historical fantasy. The historical setting was very strong and well researched. I liked the fantasy aspects and the way they felt real within the world. If there's a fault here I'd say it's the lack of time devoted to the main relationship, but the constraints of their environment rather produce that. Honestly, if you like historical m/m romance, I'd seriously recommend this. I found it incredibly page-turning and engrossing.
The setting is bleak, but that's the nature of a romance between soldiers in one of the most miserable wars in history. So this isn't at all light comedy-of-manners style 19th century romance, but that's not a criticism if you're in the right frame of mind.
I have to preface this review by saying that The Archer's Heart by Astrid Amara remains the best M/M fantasy I've ever read and stands as one of my top three favorite books to this day. Because of that, I have the highest respect for this author and consider her easily on par with some of the best writers out there. She really deserves to be with a big publishing house. One only wonders if her books dealt with M/F relationships how things might be different. It shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is.
Having said that, I wanted to give this book five stars, but I just couldn't. I'd been waiting for Amara's next fantasy since The Archer's Heart and when this book became available, I was beyond excited. Unfortunately, my experience with this book wasn't the same. I realize that it's a completely different story, but I was expecting to be swept away again to exotic locations with incredible characters with a driving plot that had me compulsively turning pages from the very first one. That didn't happen here. Amara's outstanding voice and writing style are on every page, but it was problems with pacing, structure and plotting that made it difficult for me to get invested in this story.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This book is just over 300 pages and for the first third, at least 100 pages, the two main characters, Elliot and Ilyas, have virtually no interaction with each other except for some procedural dialogue for half a page a few times. With no dynamics between them, it became difficult to understand them as characters and get emotionally invested in them as individuals or as a potential pair. They just don't interact. What does happen is lots and lots of descriptions about troop maneuvers, rain, rations, dysentery, marching and more maneuvers. Like the troops, this stretch of chapters was a long, hard slog. A few minor developments occur, but nothing of major significance.
While this left the plot feeling virtually inert through this section, it was also completely void of suspense. This is because the story's antagonist isn't even apparent until the halfway point in the book. While all the maneuvers are going on, it appears that the British colonels are deliberately placing their troops in harm's way in various battles in order to get most of them killed for some unnamed reason. It's clear by Colonel West's ordering of Elliot to spy on Ilyas' activities that the military brass is aware of the ghost coffins. I thought for a while that it might be government/military corruption that was to be the opposing force, but the threat wasn't immediate enough and didn't have a face. All great antagonists are distinct characters, not abstract conspiracies. It turns out that Ilyas' brother, Alisher, was the true antagonist, and the military played an unrelated, secondary antagonistic role. The problem here is that this is not revealed until Chapter 15 in a book that has only 28 chapters. Alisher makes one brief appearance before this point, but there is no indication of his connections or motives. With no real opposing force or presence, the plot lacks any real tension in the entire first half of the book. It's just Elliot snooping around spying on Ilyas, oh, and more maneuvers. The good news is that once Chapter 15 arrives, things really start to pick up and Amara regains her page-turner reputation.
Even so, as the reveals begin to be presented within a tighter, quicker presentation, a lot of things didn't make sense, especially with continuity and plot points. I was waiting for a unique or grand explanation as to how Ilyas got possessed by his demon. Because the entity was an ancient Greek demon and son of a goddess, Ilyas must have some unique quality or backstory as to why the creature chose him, right? The real explanation that Ilyas and his gang were tour guides in Europe who robbed some of their unsuspecting tourists and inadvertently got possessed by opening the ghost coffins they'd stolen was beyond anticlimactic. They were just poor lugs who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the same time, the reader is told that the tourists were given the ghost coffins as souvenirs by monks at the temple they'd just toured. It's never explained how the monks came into possession of the ghost coffins or why they would give such dangerous artifacts to just anyone. "Maybe they didn't know what they were" doesn't work here. It's also never explained how the demons were captured in the coffins in the first place, who did it and why. Again, this is another moment for rich backstory that's left void. It seems that things "just happen" in may places in this book for no other reason but to keep the story moving.
Speaking of things "just happening", Ilyas appears at one point near the end and just happens to have all the lost pieces of the broken vase with no explanation as to how he found them or where they were. For the majority of the story, he's not even looking for them. Never mind that this vase has no real relevance to the story and plays no role in exorcising Ilyas. Likewise, Elliot spends much time trying to decipher the meaning of the carvings on the vase, which are never revealed to the reader. They just don't matter. At the same time, Elliot just happens to assume things from the Greek symbols on the ghost coffins that couldn't possibly be extrapolated from the limited amount of information he had available to him. It's also unfortunate that Amara included the cliched plot device of a "grizzeled old woman in the seedy part of town who knows all the local lore and has the answers you need". She even works in an apothecary. (At least she wasn't a fortuneteller). In this case, it was Grabhor who not only tells Elliot and Ilyas about an underground temple they must go to, but it just so happens the French troops are digging trenches in the VERY spot where the temple is located. How great is it that those troops have already done 99% of the work for Elliot and Ilyas? Before they leave her backroom lair, Grabhor gives Elliot a necklace that prevents any demons from coming near him. Wow. She might as well have given him kryptonite. Because Elliot had a catch-all, fool-proof protection device against any onslaught by a demon, he was never in any real danger. This was another suspense killer. Strangely, at times, Alisher and other demons were able to make physical contact with Elliot while he was in possession of the necklace, which made no sense and seemed to violate the system of magic established in the book. It's also never explained how Ilyas, who also had a demon inside him, could get close to and interact with Elliot while he had the necklace on under his clothes or in his pocket/pouch. It was made clear that the necklace repels demons, not just during an attack. When Elliot and Ilyas finally get to the French trenches to dig, guess what? They just so happen to sink their shovels into the very spot where the 4ft x 3ft stone door is to the underground chamber. No searching necessary. While underground, Elliot copies some extremely important glyphs from a wall. Much is made of them and he's nearly killed in the process of getting them, but he never deciphers them and the reader isn't told what they mean. They're inconsequential to the plot. This entire sequence was unnecessary and didn't move the plot forward.
In spite of all the inconsistencies and deus ex machina devices providing our heroes with quick fixes, the plot is moving along, but around Chapter 24, we're back at camp talking about horses and rations, and the momentum grinds to a halt in a way that's jarring. Time is wasted on scenes such as Elliot and Ilyas having dinner at some outpost where nothing is revealed. So many pages are spent on this irrelevant information that by the time the plot picks up again, it feels very rushed to the point where problems get solved in a single paragraph. It takes Elliot barely this amount of space to find the final grand temple, where the finale will take place, which he seems to literally stumble upon and just find. It really begins to feel like the author just wanted to get the story over with because the last two or three chapters are broken up into more, increasingly smaller subsections than any other. Events happen and are gone in a flash giving a very rushed feeling to a book that was extremely slow on the takeoff. This rushed presentation near the end really hurts the final battle between Elliot, Alisher and Ilyas. It's quite disappointing in its brevity and leaves the reader feeling cheated. The characters themselves deserved a more worthy victory. It would seem that a story about Greek goddess, Eris, and her demonic children of destruction begs for a huge finale, but in her rush to wrap things up, Amara doesn't provide one. Another opportunity lost.
It also made no sense that as the story progressed, Ilyas was supposed to be falling into deeper states of possession and losing more and more control to his demon, making him increasingly more dangerous. Oddly, as the story goes on, he becomes more affectionate, loving and understanding of Elliot. While this serves the M/M romance, it directly contradicts the plot device. Yes, Ilyas does seclude himself in a cabin in the woods away from Elliot, but only for about one chapter and near the very end. I also didn't buy that the grand motive of Alisher and his demonic gang was to keep the Crimean war going. Really? I would think that as the sons of a goddess, their goal would be much bigger, such as fanning out over the earth to create worldwide chaos. I didn't feel an urgency to stop the demons in this book because outside the romantic subplot, the stakes just weren't high enough. It also seemed illogical that the British military would want to weaponize the demons by infecting their own troops with them and capitalizing on their powers and strength. They knew how uncontrollable Ilyas was with a demon inside him. For logical, military leaders who are experts in calculating risk, this seemed implausible.
Unfortunately, Ilyas' attempt to rescue Elliot from his court martial prison cell elicited a few eye rolls. Even being half British, Ilyas would have had a distinct Russian countenance and with his dark features would never have passed for a Brit, even in uniform. At the same time, it was preposterous and an insult to readers to suggest that Ilyas did his best to "drop his Russian accent" and that somehow, that was enough to fool the guard on duty to hand Elliot over to him? Unless Ilyas went to acting school to learn how to lose his accent, this just could never happen, but it did. It "just happened".
I feel that this book would have certainly benefited by being written against a different backdrop. The Crimean war holds no importance over this story, and there's no reason it has to take place during this time. That would have eliminated all the chapters about maneuvers and battles that contributed nothing to the main plot or story momentum. I also found it unfortunate that this book mentioned on many occasions the "perversity" of Elliot's actions with Ilyas. Now in the 21st Century, can we finally dispose of these damaging labels when it comes to gay relationships? Yes, I know this is a piece of historical fiction, but even in the era in which this book takes place, everyone didn't think the same way on every issue. Even though many frowned on homosexuality during this time, it would be refreshing to at least have lead characters that are comfortable with their sexuality within themselves and not fretting about it or God forbid, judging themselves.
In spite of all this, I gave The Devil Lancer two stars because there are some good moments in this book, which are, in part, what The Archer's Heart is in it's entirety. To Amara's credit, this was probably a difficult book to write. In a large sense, this book is an archeological mystery with similarities to an Indiana Jones adventure. Mysteries require specific setups and payoffs. Everything has to mean something that fits together into a grand puzzle that amazes the reader when the final piece is slipped into place. That never happens here because the pieces are either irrelevant to the story or just don't fit together. Mysteries are some of the hardest stories to write, if they're well done, not to mention the historical research that had to be done for this book. She also writes the most beautiful, authentic, erotic and honest moments of love between men that I've ever read. I often wonder if she was a gay man in another life....and I mean that as a compliment. I do recommend The Devil Lancer, if only that the reading of it leads the reader back to The Archer's Heart.
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