BOOK REVIEW: The Flame and the Arrow by Emigh Cannaday

So as you may have noticed, I just got back from vacation. Almost a week at the beach with The Husband. It was GLORIOUS. I read two books a day, every day but the last one (only one). I haven’t done that in I don’t even know how long… It was GLORIOUS. (Yes, that bore repeating.) One of my beach books was today’s review – The Flame and the Arrow, an extremely fun elves-and-fantasy story that read much more like a classic find-your-way-home adventure than its self-described “dark fantasy paranormal romance” appellation would suggest. My review copy was generously provided by the author, in exchange for an honest review.

You can read the description of the book on Amazon or at the author’s own site. The book was, simply put, fun. From the get-go, the protagonist Annika was a delight – a sassy girl trying to keep from being trapped into a life she doesn’t want to settle for, she literally stumbles into the type of adventure many of us have often day-dreamed about… She quickly discovers there’s more to the world than she realized, and more to herself as well. Her ensuing journey to fully realize her own identity – in this world and another – is populated by hi-jinks, (mis)adventure, a spectrum of personalities, and more than a little steamy elf-action. There is a great cast of supporting characters. The love interest (Talvi) sometimes felt a little stereotypical, but what do you expect from an elf heartthrob? (teehee) The samodivi are a great addition to the story – a supernatural element that hasn’t already been played out to death. There are great family and friendship story lines, and the scenery/world-building is deft and imaginative without feeling overdone. There is definitely a strong romance element to the book, some of the descriptions are not for the faint of fluttering heart (teehee), but there’s so much more to this story than just that – which, frankly, I wouldn’t have initially suspected from the cover and “DFPR” part of the book title/description.

I’m glad the author contacted me about this one – I likely wouldn’t have read it otherwise (romance/steamy descriptions aren’t generally my thing), and I’m quite glad I did. Annika is a human (teehee) and believable character, and her travails to find her place in the world(s) were well written and well thought out. There’s a great cliffhanger-ish ending that left me wincing my way to Amazon, eager to see if there’s a sequel yet (there IS!) – it left me eager to see where the story goes next, but didn’t at all feel like the book abruptly stopped in the middle of a thought. I hate when authors do that – it feels contrived, a forced way to make you buy the next book simply to finish the story you started. This wasn’t that at all – it was simply an ending that left you hungry for more. A great way to end a story, to my mind, and a coup for an author to pull off. I’m definitely going to order the sequel as a result…