Review: The Golden Dynasty by Kristen Ashley

Title: The Golden Dynasty

Author: Kristen Ashley

Release Date: August 22, 2011

Publisher: Self-Published

Pages: 421

Source: Purchased from Amazon

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Synopsis:

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.

My Thoughts:

I don’t even know how to describe how much I loved this book. I laughed, I cried, I swooned, a lot. I was happy and devastated, and sad as well. Not many books have the ability to bring out all those emotions in me.

We start off with Circe about to be picked by a Korwahk warrior to be his bride. She has no idea how she got there. All she remembers is going to sleep in her bed in Seattle and the next thing she knows she is running for her life in a different universe. She is wearing different clothes; she doesn’t know the language and the culture. She thinks it is a dream and wishes strongly to wake up in her own bed back in Seattle. Through The Wife Hunt, Circe is picked by Dax Lahn, the king of Suh Tunak to be his bride, the queen of his people. It is a hard adjustment for her at first but through challenges she begins to accept the culture of the Korwahk, and little by little she begins to find her footing.

I first decided to read this book because in one of the reviews I read, someone compared it to Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones. They were my favourite couple and their story did not have a happy ending. As soon as I started reading this book, I found it was similar in ways but also very different. I LOVED it! I am so happy I read it.

This book is so magical, I still can’t stop thinking about it. I stayed up almost a whole day because I wanted to finish the story. After that, I read my favourite parts again and again. There is something captivating about how Circe and Lahn overcome their language barriers; Circe overcoming The Wife Hunt , the brutal way she was became Lahn’s wife and of course the culture which is nothing what she is used to. I have to say she did a great job adjusting, not many people would be able to and not as quickly.

I loved learning about the customs, the ways and the traditions of the Korwahk as much as sometimes it frustrated me. Some of their ways were just barbaric and brutal and downright cruel. For example, a warrior can do anything he likes, ANYTHING, with his bride. Some things were hard to stomach but it worked in the storyline and made the story all that more believable.

This is definitely one of my favourite books by Kristen Ashley. This will definitely be one my all time favourites. I know this story will be one of the books I go back to because I want to relive every feeling I had when I first read it. Kristen Ashley has this way of weaving a story and molding it to be unforgettable. Bravo, Kristen Ashley, Bravo!

Favourite Quotes:

“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.” 

"I gave up a world for you." 

“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.” 

My Rating:

5+++stars out of 5

Raquel

xoxo