Review: The Golden Dynasty by Kristen Ashley

Title:  The Golden Dynasty
Author:  Kristen Ashley
Series:  Fantasyland, #2
Publisher:  N/A
Release Date:  August 22, 2011
Pages:  kindle edition, 421
Rating:  

Circe Quinn goes to sleep at home and wakes up in a corral filled with women wearing sacrificial virgin attire - and she is one of them. She soon finds out that she’s not having a wild dream, she’s living a frightening nightmare where she’s been transported to a barren land populated by a primitive people and in short order, she’s installed very unwillingly on her white throne of horns as their Queen.

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.

“Circe,” he called and my eyes slid back. Then he shared gently, “There has been only one moment in my life when I have been happier than I am in this one and that was sharing the beauty your magic created while you told me you loved me.”

Drumroll to my first five star read of the year! And it was fucking fantastic! This would be my second Kristen Ashley book and I must say my first experience with her wasn't very good, but I had stumbled upon this book in the Goodreads Listotopia Lists and the synopsis sounded amazing, something that I would greatly enjoy, I read reviews and was pre-warned about the world inside this book and how it could upset me, so I went in open-minded and came out pleased!


“I could not dream a better you.” Oh my God. Oh… my… God. Did he just say that? I stared into his warm eyes. He just said that. And that was so sweet, so unexpected but so welcome, my breath arrested and all I could do was continue staring at him. He wasn’t done. “A better wife, a better queen. Not even in a dream could I create better than you.”

THE GOLDEN DYNASTY hit me with many emotions that wounded my heart as well as brought it back to life! Circe wakes up to find herself in another world where she is in a middle of the Wife Hunt waiting to begin. The Wife Hunt's purpose is for warrior's to find a wife. The women are let loose and the warrior's hunt them and they are claimed aka. raped by the warrior then and become their wife.

There are many aspects in this book that turn me off, but it is something that is the way their world is. Like, The WIfe Hunt, slaves, men being is control is normal. So like I said, I am being open-minded. Anyways, Circe catches the eye of King Dax Lahn, and Lahn is one sexy son of a bitch! He is all alpha, which I love in my men and he was sweet and all swoon worthy and he was a man's man, an honorable one. Circe was a freaking warrior princess! She is kind, sweet, strong-willed and determined. They were the perfect match!


"Then I whispered, "I love you, my Lahn," and heard the swift hiss of his intake of breath. Then he buried his face in my neck and whispered back, "Loot kay hansahnalay na, my Circe." And I love you, my Circe."

At the beginning, I did not like that Lahn and Circe could not understand each other. I felt like Circe, clueless most of the time. The translation was at the end of the chapter, but I had lost interest by then. I wish it was there in italics on the same page or something. Anyway, like I said, I didn't like it in the beginning, but as I read and read some more, their little interactions with each other were so adorable. And Lahn was determined to win Circe's heart. It was a challenge, but he was up to the challenge and planning to win!


“But what you did just now, taking your anger out on me when I did something in all innocence, I cannot and will not forgive. You do not know your own strength but it is formidable, so formidable it cows men but I am no man. I am a woman, your woman and you used all of it in violence against me and that, kah Dax, is unforgivable.”

Lahn does a few unforgivable things to Circe. Yes, the rape, claiming her. But the two more things that I was in a fit of rage in and I immediately go into RANT MODE! That's how attached I had become to this book, I"m so emotionally attached the characters, even a few side characters and this amazing world! Oh, god, how beautiful it all is! But I love how he compromises with Circe. That's another reason I have fallen so madly for him! Okay, you get it! I loved THE GOLDEN DYNASTY and I can't wait to read more from Kristen Ashley now!