From Goodreads: Nara-Ya is a pugnacious adolescent girl on the run from a powerful sorceress. Fate lands her in the company of her polar opposite, the soft-spoken Donovan Brennan, who is simultaneously struggling to lead a Resistance movement, regain a throne for a wronged King, and prevent a war between the land he lives in and the land of his birth.

Brennan walks a fine line between his principles and success; Nara-Ya, by contrast, knows what she has to do to survive, and circumstances shunt her towards the life of a fighter and warrior. However, as war looms, as her friendship with Donovan grows into something more, and as Nara-Ya is forced to confront her darker instincts, she begins to question her destiny, and is forced to make a decision that will alter the fate of their world.

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This story had a very interesting concept, but I personally found it a bit slow and hard to follow.  There are many characters introduced throughout the novel, and I had a hard time keeping them all straight, especially the more minor ones.  Likewise, the plot tended to shift around a bit, from a huge, epic battle where Nara-Ya shows her true colors, to months of the characters sitting around doing nothing but waiting.  And so, the pacing would speed up and slow down constantly, which was difficult for me, since I’m one of those readers that likes the pacing to be the same throughout a novel.  However, Donovan and Nara-Ya were very interesting characters, and I feel like they were fleshed out very well throughout the story.  They are total opposites, and Forde did a phenomenal job creating them.  I liked them very much when they were together, and following their budding relationship over the many years within the novel was nice.  I would have liked even more information about them and their love life, which, in my opinion, was all too short, but is indeed the makings of a good sequel. 

This novel deals a lot with political uprisings, war, love, redemption, and of course, there are some paranormal/sci-fi elements as well, such as a unicorn and the like, so I think that readers who enjoy books of this caliber will really enjoy it.  Three stars.

I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.