Grade: A

First she gives me mermaid sex, now it’s centaur sex. I’m telling ya, P.C. Cast is rapidly becoming one of my automatic buys. I can’t believe how much I loved this book. I devoured it one sitting and was very sorry when it ended. That hasn’t happened to me in months. Her characters, the dialogue, the world-building, the mythology… the fangirl inside me is just jumping up and down, squealing like a Japanese girl in pigtails and a schoolgirl uniform. I mean, as I was reading the book, I could actually see it like a movie in my head. There were smells and textures and colors and sounds! And the hero… oh, dear God, the hero. I haven’t drooled so much over a fictional character since Eloisa James’ Marquess of Bonnington. ClanFintan is just so good and courteous and clever and dashing… and so not a jerk. From the very first page where he shows up, he just kind of jumps out, larger than life. Oh, and Shannon, the heroine is not bad, either. Their love, their romance, their courtship… le sniff.

Okay, enough fangirl gushing: I’m grossing myself out. Our heroine is Shannon Parker, a thirty-five year old English teacher, who’s kind of bored with herself. She doesn’t have a boyfriend nor children, but was married once with a man she calls her “starter husband”. She seems happy with herself, but also has a fanciful mind, so she wouldn’t mind if there was a little magic in her life. She’s not one of those neurotic heroines who think their lives are not worth living if they don’t have a baby or if they never find their one true love. She’s a little lonely, so she goes on blind dates, but not really in a hurry to find Mr. Right. In fact, she seems the type who’ll go out and have a drink with Mr. Right Now without expecting anything to come out of it.

One day, she visits an out-of-the-way estate auction and encounters a little urn that she is instantly attracted to. The urn incites something in her that she dismisses as hot flashes and hallucinations, but finds herself unable to stop looking at it. As she looks closer, she notices that the image on the urn looks exactly like her, down from her vivid red hair to the star-shaped burn on her hand that she received when she was four years old in a pasta boiling accident. She is compelled to bid on the urn, no matter how much it freaks her out, and as soon as she wins it, she immediately leaves the estate and promptly gets into a horrible accident. When she wakes up, she is in a different world. Her body is her own and she feels exactly the same, but the woman who looks exactly like her best friend says she’s not who Shannon thinks she is, and baby, she’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.

What I immediately like about Shannon is that she’s clever and quick on her feet. When she first wakes up as Lady Rhiannon, High Priestess of the Goddess Epona (she and Shannon had switched bodies), she is suspicious of her surroundings, but asks the logical questions and forces herself to be open-minded to the answers. She doesn’t automatically embrace what Alanna—who is her best friend Suzannah in her world—tells her about her new world, but doesn’t dismiss it, either. She doesn’t panic and beg to be taken back like I would have done, but instead views it as an adventure. This girl is game for everything. She doesn’t even scream hysterically when Alana tells her that she is about to be married to a stranger and stays calm when she sees that her husband-to-be is a FRICKIN’ HORSE.

ClanFintan, our hero, is a centaur, a powerful Shaman, and the chieftain of his tribe. Because of his birth and social standing, it is his duty to marry Lady Rhiannon, Epona’s Chosen. When he first encounters her, she’s kind of a bitch to him because his horsy half freaks her out. He has also heard rumors—in this case, it turns out to be the truth—that his bride-to-be will sleep with anything with two legs. He has four. Because of this, he is wary of her, and resolves that he will not get emotionally involved with her.

On the day of their handfasting—which is a temporary marriage, just in case it doesn’t work out—he notices a change in her demeanor. Though she is still nervous around him, she is no longer outright mean to him. She looks at him with interest and does not shy away from his touch. He is a little confused by this because Rhiannon has made it clear in the past that she finds his appearance disgusting. Though he finds himself warming towards her, he reminds himself to be careful because she could just be toying with him. Unbeknown to him, Shannon is very attracted to him. She thinks he’s a little weird-looking, but she’s not disgusted by him and in fact, thinks he’s… kind of cool. Thus begins their courtship.

And what a courtship it is. These two dance around each other warily at first—much like boxers sizing each other up before a match—but they quickly form a makeshift trust for each other and set out to get to know each other. What I really like about these two is that they are friends first. They do not automatically jump each other’s bones. Everything starts out with quick glances, then little touches. What they feel for each other is not an instantaneous lust like in other romance novels where the two leads think of nothing but trying to fuck each other. It starts out as a small spark, then gradually increases into a flame that they feel in their souls. They laugh together, talk to each other, and most importantly, respect each other. Man, it is such a rare thing in romance novels nowadays that I will find two lead characters who actually enjoy each other’s company and don’t bicker like children, only to shove their tongues in each other’s throats when they’re tired of yakking. No, there are no petty squabbling or stupid misunderstandings between these two because THEY ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND TALK TO EACH OTHER! Gasp, what a strange and nouveau notion.

One night, Shannon (who has a quirky ability to control her dreams in her world) has a strange dream where she floats outside of her body and flies over the towns and the villages of her new world. She ends up floating over Rhiannon’s father’s castle (incidentally, Rhiannon’s dad is a mirror image of her own) and watches as strange winged vampire-like creatures attack Rhiannon’s father’s people and kill Rhiannon’s father. When Shannon wakes up, Alanna tells her that it is not just a dream, but an actual real-time vision. As it turns out, astral projection is one of Rhiannon’s powers and what she had seen in her dream is actually happening. Like a true romance heroine (warning: this is a bit of a TSTL moment, but it actually moves the story forward, so I forgave it), she sneaks out of her castle without telling Alanna or ClanFintan to see for herself that Rhiannon’s dad is really dead and to give him a proper burial. I kind of rolled my eyes at this because what could she possibly do? She doesn’t know the lay of the land, doesn’t know what kind of creatures could be lurking in the dark, and it’s a whole different world for her. Stupid girl.

Fortunately, ClanFintan immediately catches up to her and rescues her, before she can get herself killed. This little adventure gives them an opportunity to have some bonding moments and there are some really cute scenes here, which is good because when they get to the castle, they find some pretty nasty shit. And I’m gonna go ahead and stop right here because it will be a damned shame if I ruined the story for ya.

Oh, but these two are awesome together. If you’re wondering how they have sex, let me tell you right now that there aren’t any grody bestiality scenes (so horse fucking enthusiasts, this ain’t for you). ClanFintan is a very powerful Shaman, remember? He can do whatever the hell he wants with his body. And boy, lemme tell ya, this kid has endurance and horsy stamina. But you know, it’s not the sex scenes that matter, alright? It’s the little kisses and the little looks they have for each other. It’s kind of like that electricity that Mulder and Scully had before the travesties that were seasons 7, 8, and 9. What’s awesome about Shannon and Clanfintan is that they’re partners. While ClanFintan is busy gathering troops and formulating military strategies to fight the beasties, Shannon stays out of the way—she reasons that she knows nothing about war—and finds something else to do that is equally worthy. And oh, it is. It really is. When it gets down to the crunch time, however, they pair up again and fight side by side with each other. You see, these two become so important to each other that they would rather die than leave other’s sides. Oh, man, that’s so sweet. I’m getting choked up just talking about it.

Centaurs are hot!

What makes this book really fun to read is Ms. Cast’s writing style. The story is told from Shannon’s first-person point of view, so we get Shannon’s very colorful commentary on everything. Ms. Cast gets crazy with the parenthetical asides at first (it interrupted the flow of her prose and became kind of annoy—aw, crap, she got me doing it now!), but she calms down as the story gets going and eases off. Anyway, the tone of the story is very engaging and Shannon is a hilarious storyteller. She’s not preachy or boring, nor does she indulge in the always pathetic does-he-love-me-oh-my-gosh-I-don’t-deserve- him bullshit. I think it’s because Shannon is older than most of the female characters I read about (I was reading a whole bunch of Regencies), but I’ve also read about female characters who are supposed to be in their forties, but act like they’re twelve. Shannon complains about her saggy boobs, lack of toilet paper, and a good moisturizer, but she doesn’t get all weird and neurotic about it. In fact, her character kind of reminded me of Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun. She is graceful, secure in her own feminine power, and most importantly, confident in her own intelligence and abilities.

I definitely enjoyed reading this book and will have to read it again in the near future. Now where can I find a shape-shifting centaur of my very own?

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Romance: Paranormal, Romance: Sci-fi/Fan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.