This was fantastic and I loved the entire thing. This won’t be for everyone since it is brutal in places but for me it has everything I really love in a book.

#1 - Characters that have been through some heavy stuff.

Azarion has been a gladiator for ten years, is now the Gladius Prime and the unfortunate toy and brutalized play thing of the Empress for almost as long. He is a slave and but has held on with the hope of escaping the pits.

***Beautiful, soft, and perfumed, Dalvila of Kra...

This was fantastic and I loved the entire thing. This won’t be for everyone since it is brutal in places but for me it has everything I really love in a book.

#1 - Characters that have been through some heavy stuff.

Azarion has been a gladiator for ten years, is now the Gladius Prime and the unfortunate toy and brutalized play thing of the Empress for almost as long. He is a slave and but has held on with the hope of escaping the pits.

***Beautiful, soft, and perfumed, Dalvila of Krael could raise an erection in a corpse, and Azarion wasn’t immune to her physical charms. He couldn’t be. He’d learned quickly that to displease her in bed courted imminent death. ***

Gilene is a fire witch and every year she does her duty and is sacrificed as a Flower of Spring. She marches to the capitol with the other women slotted to die on the pyre. She is her village’s sacrifice and with illusion casts a new face on herself, she has marched to her supposed death along side them knowing that it will eat a little more of her soul and her body every year.

***”Sometimes you do the thing you hate so others don’t have to, whether it’s from love, guilt, or blackmail.” ***

They are so similar in their stubbornness and their need to survive. They will do just about anything to make sure that they come out on the other side okay, no matter the cost to others.

#2 – This is an enemies to friends to lovers sort of tale

Do not think for a second that the Romance is at the forefront in book. It is not. It is off to the side and kitty corner from the plot. Azarion needs Gilene, first for his escape and then later to help him reclaim his place with his people. He cares for nothing else and is not apologetic about it at all.

***She envied Azarion because he’d broken free of the shackles the Empire had put upon him. Though she had been one of the Empire’s many victims, Gilene had never been one of its slaves. She belonged to Beroe instead, and those chains would hold her until she died. ***

Gilene has one goal. To make it back to her people before the next spring so that she can be sacrificed as a Flower of Spring. She will put up with even Azarion if he can keep her ahead of the empire tracking them and keep his promise to return her home.

I love how they uneasy alliance they formed began to change and grow to admiration, respect and eventually more. Both have scars both literal and figurative and they both see past those to the weapons and people that have been honed but the trials they have faced.

#3 – The worldbuilding captured my interest

I really enjoyed the lore and magic of this book. The culture of Azarion’s people and the magic Gilene carries. There are also hints of other types of magic throughout the book that lead me to believe there are many subtle forms of it in this world. I liked the different horse clans and how they operated. I also enjoyed the idea of the struggle against the Empire. It definitely reminded me of the Roman Empire a little.

There are other charaters in the book that held a lot of interest for me. Especially the Halani who could have some sort of healing magic and the bird woman who could talk to the dead. I definitely think there are more stories in this world yet to be told.

#4 – An engaging plot that kept the pages turning

It was absolutely amazing how fast this story went by for me. I didn’t want to put it down and woke up in the middle of the night because I just needed to read more of it. Towards the end I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how it would all play out and if Azarion would find a way to defeat the Capitol so that Gilene would never have to be a Flower of Spring again for her people.

#5 – Satisfying Ending

Okay, it could have been just a smidge sappier for the romantic in me but it was still super solid. I think this won’t be the last book in this world but it ended at a great spot so that you could decide not to continue with other books and be satisfied. But it was so good why wouldn’t you read another book in this world?

Overall

This was right in my wheelhouse and I loved every minute reading it. I’m excited to read anything else written in this world by Grace Draven.

I checked it out of the library.
The book has good world building and character development. I enjoyed the book, the hero was legendary. His home the steppes sounded like Mongolia and the empire reminded me of Rome.

I’m not sure why it wasn’t a 5 star book for me but here are some reasons which were minor but added up. The evil empress and workers were depraved and their cruelty was descriptive. The coincidences in the story were eye rolling but made a happy story; I don’t know if the her...

I checked it out of the library.
The book has good world building and character development. I enjoyed the book, the hero was legendary. His home the steppes sounded like Mongolia and the empire reminded me of Rome.

I’m not sure why it wasn’t a 5 star book for me but here are some reasons which were minor but added up. The evil empress and workers were depraved and their cruelty was descriptive. The coincidences in the story were eye rolling but made a happy story; I don’t know if the hero could have even survived ten years as a gladiator and then be as honorable as he was. The magic was a big part of the story and yet not really a big part of defining the characters who had the magic, which was different from other magical characters I’ve read. The heroine was stubborn about giving up her role as “savior/martyr” for the yearly empire sacrifice even after falling in love with the hero. These detractors are minor and yet the parts that made me feel uncomfortable.

I will try another book by the author. I would recommend the book if violence, sex, and unbelievable coincidences don’t detract the story for you. It was a feel good epic book.

This first novel in the Fallen Empire trilogy sets up the story and world of Gilene, Azarion, and their respective peoples who live bound by some truly malevolent rulers. Each year the exceedingly evil Krael Empire demands young women as sacrifices from outlying villages sent to the capital to die in a horrible manner. All this happens for the entertainment of the rulers and citizens as well as ostensibly appeasing the gods. After gladiators fight to the death, the next level of atrocity come...

This first novel in the Fallen Empire trilogy sets up the story and world of Gilene, Azarion, and their respective peoples who live bound by some truly malevolent rulers. Each year the exceedingly evil Krael Empire demands young women as sacrifices from outlying villages sent to the capital to die in a horrible manner. All this happens for the entertainment of the rulers and citizens as well as ostensibly appeasing the gods. After gladiators fight to the death, the next level of atrocity comes when the women are burned as tributes to the appreciative crowd’s roar. Gilene has selflessly gone to fill that role for the last five years. Using hidden powers as a fire witch that make her immune to the burning, Gilene saves other women from her village the horrible fate of brutality by the guards and gladiators, and then immolation. Azarion, the Prime Gladiator, has the magical ability to see through Gilene’s illusions. With Gilene’s reluctant help, Azarion foments an escape from the brutal fighting and the cruel, capricious whims of the Empress he has survived for the last ten years. Azarion forces Gilene to follow him back home to the Savatar people where he must face an enemy to reclaim a stolen birthright.

Gilene is a less than willing accomplice spending much of their perilous trek back to Azarion’s homeland resisting her growing attraction to this man whom she feels should be despised. They have a difficult and dangerous road to follow with Empire soldiers after them to capture the Empresses’ favorite fighter to use and torture. Azarion’s attraction to Gilene is much more than her usefulness in helping him and his people. He sees not only her physical beauty despite scars from her gift as a fire witch, but an inner loveliness coupled with a generous and compassionate heart. Gilene suffers much on behalf of her village to save other women though she receives poor treatment in return.

This well-crafted story is quite a heart pounder in places with characters the reader will come to care about very quickly. The action, adventure, and slow burn love story are very well paced and will take you on an intense and satisfying journey. Both Gilene and Azarion are people who refused to let their untenable situations destroy their souls or give in to the degradation over which they had no control. The great pleasures in Ms. Draven’s writing include an excellent tale, memorable characters, and fine storytelling with an emotional voyage taking readers on quite an intense ride. Ms. Draven’s fine attention to detail makes for a lush story of fantasy powered by real emotions to take the reader on a most wonderful journey.