Master of Crows [Kindle Edition]

Grace Draven (Author), Lora Gasway (Editor), Mel Sanders (Editor), Louisa Gallie (Illustrator)

Book Description

What would you do to win your freedom?

This is the question that sets bondwoman, Martise of Asher, on a dangerous path. In exchange for her freedom, she bargains with her masters, the mage-priests of Conclave, to spy on the renegade sorcerer, Silhara of Neith. The priests want Martise to expose the sorcerer's treachery and turn him over to Conclave justice. A risky endeavor, but one she accepts without hesitation--until she falls in love with her intended target.

Silhara of Neith, Master of Crows, is a desperate man. The god called Corruption invades his mind, seducing him with promises of limitless power if he will help it gain dominion over the world. Silhara struggles against Corruption's influence and searches for ways to destroy the god. When Conclave sends Martise as an apprentice to help him, he knows she's a spy. Now he fights a war on two fronts--against the god who would possess him and the apprentice who would betray him.

Mage and spy search together for a ritual that will annihilate Corruption, but in doing so, they discover secrets about each other that may damn them both. Silhara must decide if his fate, and the fate of nations, is worth the soul of the woman he has come to love, and Martise must choose continued enslavement or freedom at the cost of a man's life. And love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'...I can't gush enough about this book!...Master Of Crows is a lush, enthralling tale I'll read again and again!...The deep and darkly sexy Silhara is one of my favorite heroes ever! Every time I eat an orange, I think of him with a sigh...Martise is everything you could hope for in a heroine.' --Robin L. Rotham, author of Alien Overnight

Product Details

• File Size: 600 KB
• Print Length: 278 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1602728631
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Grace Draven (August 8, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005GHN2GG
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,585 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful steamy historical fantasy/PNR romance! September 20, 2011

By KarLynP

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

5++ stars. (A rating I rarely give, and I have read over a thousand romances). I loved this one. Master of Crows is a wonderful fantasy/PNR romance with a great balance of rich world building (felt like a medieval/Persia kind of world, loved it!), mixed with a solid, steamy hot romance and great chemistry between the H/h (Silhara of Nieth, the Master of Crows, and Martise of Asher, a slave girl with an unexpected magical gift). This book slowly paints an intricate world with Gods, priest clans, mages, giants, soul eaters (and other creatures) living among ordinary humans.

The story often had a darker feel to it, yet it kept surprising me with bits of light humorous moments that would make me grin ear to ear. Silhara and Martise had some of the best dialogue between each other, and his relationship with his Giant servant and his smelly dog were a hoot. Initially Silhara and Martise are enemies that must work together, and then they slowly built a relationship that was so strong and believable. I loved how the relationship was never lost in all the world building, including Silhara's need to strike down the God of Corruption and battle his enemies.

Silhara really is one of the best romance heroes in my eyes. I love the strong alpha type hero but can't stand it when an author turns him into a brooding ogre. Silhara was simply fantastic as a strong hero that was not afraid to admit his feelings for Martise (despite plenty of effort to resist her). He was so hot! Martise was great too. I loved how she would put him in his place at times. In short, I thought the writing was simply amazing. Grace Draven has a new fan.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Epic Fantasy/Romance at It's Finest Hour November 4, 2011

By Douglas C. Meeks TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I know some of my friends read Master of Crows and did NOT tell me what an excellent book this was going to be. Let me clear up something and that is that all my all time favorite books have been epic type novels/trilogies/series where the hero/heroine struggles against seemingly impossible odds. That is where this book took me, as with most fantasy romance it is long winded and slow paced but the reason is that there is not the "MINE" moment you find in a lot of PNR it is a more realistic slowly evolving romance based on days/months of interaction. Master of Crows held to this principal in an excellent manner keeping my attention while plodding along towards a goal that becomes seemingly unattainable.

Since I don't do spoilers all I can say is that they have to defeat a god, a ruling body of priestly sorcerers and a few personal demons to have a chance, the odds are NOT in their favor. So, for me this gets 5 Stars on it ultimate entertainment satisfaction, this is not high romance (it DOES get there, but I am not sure there is even a kiss before 50-60% of the book) but it is storytelling at its finest and an ending that while richly satisfying can be left as a stand alone or possible a sequel but as much as I enjoyed this I think it needs to remain a standalone. I love it when I expect little of a book and find it to be exceptional, the only other time in recent months that has happened was with Original Blood.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Surprise August 14, 2009

By Amanda Blair

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I first heard of this book on an art website where several people had done fan art for it. I couldn't help it-I was intrigued more by the art than the actual plot. So I ordered it on a whim and not expecting much, started reading it right before bed. I couldn't put it down and wound up reading until morning. From the first page, I felt hooked. Silhara is a sarcastic, anti-social mage. Martise is the plain, unremarkable woman sent to spy on him. For a while, I wasn't sure if the author was going to be able to convincingly pull off this pairing. In the end, these very different people suit each other well. Martise softens Silhara. I also thought the balance between fantasy and romance was well maintained. However, I would love to see more books set in this world in order to fully explore the ins and outs of the world Grace Draven has written. The only problem I had with this novel was in the first half or so when I was slightly confused by the passing of time. In some places, it seemed like a day had gone by when it was really a week or vice versa. In the end however, this did not detract from my thorough enjoyment of the novel. This book has taught me not to be such a book snob. This book was written by an author I've never heard of and a publishing company I have also never heard of. And it was fantastic.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars sex interrupts the fantasy, but not bad! August 26, 2012

By Mountaineer

Format:Kindle Edition

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Content: Fairly explicit sex, some violence, a dozen typos. IMO, this is erotic romance cloaked in fantasy.
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3.5 stars. Some parts were superior. driven kept my attention through most of the book. Its main flaws are repetition and a surfeit of sex (plus the typos). Because the beginning felt like a fantasy-driven plot line, I expected something with less erotica and more action adventure, more like UF.

Below, I explain the flaws and highlight the parts I liked. There were several great parts!

++++++++++ SPOILERS BELOW ++++++++++

Draven immediately hooked me into the fantastical aspects of the story -- dire straights in ancient days when an evil god called Corruption blights the earth, causing rivers to run with blood and crops to whither, parched and dry. Corruption, through slithering promises of riches and power, tries to take possession of his avatar, our hero, Silhara, the Master of Crows. Silhara is a mage who dabbles just a bit in dark arts (but only to protect his precious orange trees).

A slave girl, Martise is sent to spy on the master of crows, pretending to help him. She is a woman of integrity, but she agrees to practice deception in order to regain the part of her soul that her master has imprisoned in a hunk of crystal. Martise is not pretty, but she has an almost magical speaking voice. She is smart, good with languages, and has an incredible memory. On top of all this, she has a magical gift, but no one can figure out how to release it.

Her magical gift is revealed in one of the better scenes, involving a soul sucker. I thought this scene was nicely done!

So the fantasy plot grabbed my attention. But then, very little happens.... Besides the one scene with a soul sucker, we mostly see Silhara et al. tending the orange grove, drinking tea, practicing magic incantations, going to market, and falling in love.

Lots of complaints throughout the book about how much the dog stinks. Too many repetitions of that. Just bathe him already! If Gann's kitchen were really so spotless, a filthy dog would not have been allowed under the table for every meal.

Even more disappointing from a story perspective, the author kept interrupting the plot with sex. It got irritating, because I wanted to hear the story. Silhara or Martise were either THINKING about sex or ENGAGING in it, even as Corruption was destroying the earth and slowly sucking the life out of his avatar, Silhara. Sex on the floor, the bed, and in various positions, all described in fairly graphic terms. The author used the word "cunnus" at least a dozen times. Moreover, Martise has a voice so seductive and enchanting as to "make a man come" (repeated references to the voice).

Sex and rumors of sex, but I never really sensed passion. The intense bond between Silhara and Martise just did not seem authentic. I could not buy into it. Not sure why. Maybe Silhara was too cerebral.

However, a few scenes of devotion stand out as quite memorable. In the market one day, Martise's first and only prior lover starts boasting of his conquest of her, and putting her down as an ugly hag, only worth bedding in the dark. Silhara beats him up. I liked that part. A LOT. Excellent bit of writing. But note, it does nothing to further the fantasy plot.

In another superior scene, Silhara asks his manservant to bring him a houri. When the beautiful prostitute arrives at his home....no spoilers here, but the scene was VERY well done. Even so, this section does nothing to advance the fantasy.

Silhara was repeatedly depicted with his hookah (sp?). He constantly smelled of tobacco. (The author said so, at least 10 times.)

In several evening scenes, after smoking the pipe, we see Silhara resisting the seductive Corruption, telling him to go take a hike. In one intense scene, Silhara is nearly possessed, and he....no spoiler, but that scene was scary enough.

So, too much repetition. The smelly dog. The enchanting voice. The hookah at bedtime. The tobacco-scented Silhara. The sex. The cunnus.

Secondary characters were pretty cool. I liked the dog and the manservant a lot.

Most of the potential for fantasy plot got smothered by romance, but the final battle against Corruption was well drawn. Vivid. I felt like I could see what was happening inside the mind of the god.

I really liked the very end. Silhara made some great choices. No instant riches. All that was lost is not instantly and easily recovered. They will work for it. Sweet.

There were at least a dozen errors. I noted some misplaced commas, a semi-colon where a colon belongs, and a misplaced quotation mark. At another point, the word "conversed" is used when it should have been "conversing." Some typos, for example, "too" for "took." At least one sentence just did not make sense unless I inserted a word. Some anachronistic vocabulary. For example, the author described a crushed melon drink as being "like a slurry" (slurry reflects a contemporary setting, so this pulled me right out of that ancient market scene. How would Martise know about slurries?).

With so many typos, I was especially glad the book cost only $3.00.

This author shows a lot of promise. Read more ›

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