Dax Lahn is the king of Suh Tunak, The Horde of the nation of Korwahk and with one look at Circe, he knows she will be his bride and together they will start The Golden Dynasty of legend.
Circe and Lahn are separated by language, culture and the small fact she’s from a parallel universe and has no idea how she got there or how to get home. But facing challenge after challenge, Circe finds her footing as Queen of the brutal Korwahk Horde and wife to its King, then she makes friends then she finds herself falling in love with this primitive land, its people and especially their savage leader.
Title: The Golden Dynasty (Fantasyland #2)
Author: Kristen Ashley
Publisher: Kristen Ashley
Edition: Paperback
Amount of Pages: 456
Genre: Fantasy, Adult, Romance
Date Read: 31-10-2018 - 01-11-2018
Favorite Quote: "I gave up a world for you."
Review:
I don't even know where to begin with this book. There are so many things wrong with it. For people with trigger warnings, there is rape and abuse in this book.
My bestie, Jessica, suffered through reading this book and thought "I know what to do,I'll make Lisa read it so I won't have to suffer alone." So I went into reading this book knowing what happens but decided to keep an open mind. Well lets say Jessica had a great time watching me read this book. I had to put it down so often to wrap my mind around what was happening, couldn't keep my mouth shut while reading it. And I swear if I hear/read "It's their way" one more time, I'll lose it.
Anyhow this isn't a spoiler free review. Like not even a little bit. So if you don't want any spoilers. Don't read my review.
What is this book about:
This book is about Circe. She wakes up one morning in a cage, dressed in clothes she doesn't own, in a land she doesn't know, where people are speaking a language she doesn't know.
Soon after they are being paraded through a town so the warriors can have a look at which bride they want to claim. Some of the woman want to help Circe and hide her from the brutal, cruel king but it didn't work. You see with Circe's fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes she stands out from the dark skinned, dark haired, people she's around.
That night they set the woman loose so the warriors can chase them. Once caught they rape the woman to claim them as their wives, because that's their way..... I'll let that sink in for a second.
So Circe doesn't go down without a fight. The king claims her and continues to rape her for the next three days. Her woman slaves, who'm she calls her lady's in denial of them being slaves, try to help her, they keep telling her that it's their way. That she is their queen. Well after three days she starts to think "well maybe being queen isn't so bad" "At least I got pretty clothes and jewelry, I look awesome", "the sex is pretty good". So she starts to get on with it.
Lots of stuff happens and Circe keeps talking about her pretty clothes, how she has more stuff than the others. How being queen isn't that bad. She troughs a temper tantrum a 2 year old would be jealous of, to get a tiger.... because they aren't dangerous at all or anything.
Well she and her lady's go on a walk without telling Lahn, the king, her brutal husband that is hot so it's oke. And when they get back he hits her for leaving. She gets mad about it, says that it's unforgivable. That she forgave him for raping her but slapping her is unforgivable. She stays mad for a bit but at some point her lady tells her that her husband is beyond waiting so whether she wants to or not, they will have sex. So she forgives him and they have sex.
So yeah she keeps getting more used to being queen, liking it. Using the therm "I am you queen" to get people to do what she wants when it's convenient.
Another thing that stood out to me is how fast lahn learns english, and circe learns their language.
One of the woman that was also in the hunt with Circe got it even worse. She gets raped still, used in public and beaten. Circe tries to do something but as that country has the same laws we did in the 50, he's her husband so he can do what he wants with her. This goes on for a while. One event the girl fights back and slashes her husbands face. Circe tries to help but can't really do much. So as a punishment for raping and hitting his wife the husband gets to live for two more weeks until he and lahn can fight till the death because that husband talked badly about Circe.
But the girl, she gets murdered because she fought her rapist........ yeah......
Anyhow on with it. Circe doesn't want any children, Lahn does so she now does to and she gets pregnant. He dotes on her even more, more clothes and pretty jewelry.
When they get to a town. Circe gets recognized while never having met the guy. So it turns out that the Circe that belongs in this universe switched places with this circe.
She explains this to lahn but he doens't believe her. He locks her up in their room. Telling her that she wil have his children and then he'll decide what to do with her and whether or not to believe her.
Circe manages to get back home. Her dad is actually mad at her for leaving her husband while she was pregnant because she is in love with him and he didn't raise a runner. She tells him she doesn't want to go back and tries to pick up her live but it's not over. Lahn finds her and drags her back and makes sure to magically tie her to this world even though she doesn't want to be here. She won't leave him again, he keeps saying.
After a while Circe starts thinking that she shouldn't have run. That Lahn didn't have time to get adjusted to the idea, to the truth. So when Lahn starts to say something that's close to an apology she tries to interrupt him and apologize for leaving! yeah that she was wrong....
So Lahn never apologized for the shit he pulls because it's their way.
So the order of the events I described could be a bit off and I missed allot probably. It's been some time since I read it but this is what I recall and still am not over. Stuff kept adding and adding. I kept thinking this can't get any worse and Jessica kept telling me just keep reading.
It's wrong on so many levels. It's hard to write rape in books, and I don't mind it as long as it's being written well. As long as it's handled well. Rape victims don't get over their rape after three days because their rapist is hot, they have pretty jewels and clothes and it's not that bad being queen. It sounds so much like stockholm syndrome to me.
oh yeah and apparently she has magic so thats fun.
What do I like:
So after that rant there couldn't possible be anything that I liked about this book. Well the writing style is good. The world building is interesting and there was something about this book that made me want to read on. I wanted to know what would happen next.
I kept thinking about this book, so it left an impact on me.
Rating:
2 it was decent stars
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