Dennaleia (Denna) is a princess of the northern kingdom of Havemont. She's engaged to be married to Crown Prince Thandilimon (Thandi) of Mynaria for political reasons I can't recall. Denna has a secret: she can perform fire magic. Unfortunately, Mynaria is becoming more and more anti-magic. Recusants, illegal magic users, are being hunted down, and things only get worse after a member of the royal family is assassinated by someone who is likely a Recusant.

While everyone else is quick to blame the Recusants and the nearby country of Zumorda for Mynaria's recent problems, Denna and Mare, the Mynarian princess, are the only ones who suspect something else might be going on. As Mynaria prepares for Denna and Thandi's upcoming marriage, Denna and Mare work together to uncover the truth...and gradually realize that they've fallen in love with each other.

I'll start by talking about the good. For the most part, the progression of Denna and Mare's relationship from rocky, to being friends, and finally to falling in love was pretty good. Although Mare would have preferred to have as little as possible to do with Denna when they first met, she was forced to help Denna learn how to ride horses (riding isn't a thing people do in Havemont) and got to know her more than she probably would have otherwise. Their eventual romance had a solid foundation and didn't feel like it appeared out of nowhere.

I was also happy to see that homophobia wasn't one of the things standing between Denna and Mare. From what I could tell, bisexuality was the default in this world. As far as marriage went, however, things were a little fuzzier. It sounded like same-sex marriages existed, but also like same-sex political marriages were less likely than political marriages between men and women.

Now it's time to get into the things I didn't like, and unfortunately the list is long.

First and foremost, Of Fire and Stars was boring. It took ages for things to happen and for Mare and Denna's investigations to move forward. I wanted more tense political intrigue, and instead I got occasional badly executed spying attempts, some library research, and Denna stressing over the possibility that her magical abilities would be discovered. Most of that was pushed into the background after Denna and Mare realized that they loved each other. I should have been rooting for their relationship and instead I couldn't wait for the book to finally be over.

The book alternated between chapters from Mare's POV and chapters from Denna's POV (first person past tense). Mare was a tomboy who preferred dressing up as a man and going information-gathering in local taverns to putting on gowns and spending time at court. Denna had been trained to be a perfect princess since birth. Coulthurst could have alternated between chapters devoted to Mare's spying activities and chapters in which Denna made connections at court, collected potentially useful court gossip, and did a bit of research in the palace library.

Instead, readers got the former (sort of) but only the barest sliver of the latter. Both Denna and Mare dismissed court gossip as something only silly court ladies participated in, an attitude that boggled my mind. Was I really supposed to believe that only commoners in taverns gossiped about the current state of affairs in the country, city, and palace? In the end, the only useful thing Denna got to do was library research.

Denna felt like little more than a sidekick throughout much of the story, even going so far as to beg Mare to take her on one of her trips to a local tavern. Mare, meanwhile, didn't strike me as being nearly as competent as the author wanted readers to believe. She'd have died or had her identity uncovered many times over if it hadn't been for her best friend Nils, one of the few halfway intelligent and capable characters in the book. She was also annoyingly childish, kicking her shoes off at things (bushes, doors) multiple times.

The way Mare and Denna's romance played out caused me to dislike them both. They were both selfish and frustrating. Mare viewed Denna moving forward with her and Thandi's wedding as choosing Thandi over her. Never mind that it was a political marriage and that there would be consequences for both of their countries if Denna suddenly announced that she had fallen in love with Mare and wanted to marry her instead.

Denna had a similar reaction when Mare considered agreeing to a political marriage of her own that would have at least guaranteed she could work with horses on a daily basis. If Denna had had her way, Mare would have stayed by her side for the rest of her life, unmarried and perpetually available for stolen kisses. Never once did she consider Mare's feelings and that it might be best for the person she supposedly loved to find what happiness she could elsewhere.

Although the book has a proper ending, there's definitely room for a sequel, and I see that one is supposed to come out sometime in 2019. I don't currently plan on reading it.

Extras:

There's a map at the beginning of the book. Somehow I didn't manage to see it until after I'd finished reading.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

The events of the previous book/game left Gabriel Knight somewhat wealthy and in possession of a drafty castle in Germany. His writing career has finally taken off, but he's having trouble with his latest book, so the werewolf case that the local villagers bring him is a welcome distraction. The police think the killings are being done by wolves that escaped from the zoo. Gabriel, who found a giant paw print at one of the crime scenes, feels differently. His investigation gets him involved in a private hunting club whose members appear to have a lot of secrets.

Meanwhile, Grace has gotten tired of being Gabriel's shopkeeper. She put off getting her PhD for Gabriel and his supernatural investigations, so she's darn well going to make him involve her in his latest case. She flies off to Germany and, since Gabriel's off doing his own thing, devotes herself to the research she's so good at. She discovers that Gabriel's current case may have its roots in the events surrounding King Ludwig II's apparent descent into madness and his mysterious death.

The first book, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, managed to be both terrible and enjoyable, even though I'd never played the game. I had played The Beast Within but never finished it, so I was especially looking forward to this novelization. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointment.

I will say this: it was nice to finally learn how the story ended. I can't remember if I got stuck during the chase in the forest or the chase at the opera, but I do know that I died a lot and finally just couldn't take it anymore (this was in the days of slow phone-line-hogging internet, so I probably didn't look for a walkthrough). This was a much less stressful way to get the whole story.

And that story was kind of amazing. Jensen wove together a hunting club that was engaged in various illegal activities, Ludwig II, Wagner, opera, and gay (or possibly bisexual) werewolves. How often do you get to read something in which opera literally helps save the day?

I remember liking the original game a lot. I vaguely recall having some problems with the characters and story, but they were generally overshadowed by my enjoyment of the well-integrated puzzles, gorgeous locations, and impressive-looking cutscenes (or at least they were impressive to the me of the late '90s).

Unfortunately, The Beast Within's novelization left a lot to be desired. Unlike the Sins of the Fathers novelization, it felt a lot more like an original novel than a game novelization, but this didn't turn out to be a good thing. I kind of missed the cheesy/silly “game logic” moments. Sure, Gabriel made use of his trusty tape recorder a little more than was believable, and he still picked up the occasional random item that he didn't immediately know would be useful, but he rarely did truly off-the-wall stuff like using mud from a freaking river bank to make a usable bracelet mold.

The most off-the-wall thing Gabriel did was talk to people and actually expect them to tell him what he wanted to know. And sometimes they did! He was completely out of his element in Germany – hardly any contacts, no German language skills, little-to-no knowledge of the country. The main thing he had going for him was the Ritter family name and the money he had leftover from the fistfuls he grabbed at the end of the previous book/game. I suppose you could say game logic was in play any time anyone took him into their confidence.

Gabriel managed to be slightly more annoying this time around. He was painfully American in his lack of knowledge about anything around him (Grace was more prepared to visit Germany than he was), and he somehow still managed to find time to ogle the ladies (including a weird scene in which Von Glower, the head of the hunting club, basically let him borrow his girlfriend for sex).

Grace was a huge disappointment. She was underutilized in the previous story, so I thought her having a larger role would be an improvement. However, her instant jealousy and cattiness towards Gerde, who she assumed Gabriel was sleeping with, made it hard to like her. Grace and Gabriel weren't a couple, he hadn't even treated her all that well in the previous book, and Gerde had done literally nothing other than exist to indicate that she and Gabriel were together. If Grace was going to be mad at someone, it should have been Gabriel...but he wasn't around and refused to tell her where she could find him. I could maybe see the allure of being a supernatural investigator and putting up with Gabriel for that reason, but I couldn't understand Grace's romantic interest in him.

You know who Gabriel did have chemistry with? Von Glower. Jensen had a few missed opportunities in this book, all of which had to do with character sexuality. Several characters were identified as being gay, when it might have been more accurate to say at least one of them was bisexual. Gabriel was almost magnetically drawn to Von Glower, who he described as having “effortless charm” (134) and “shoulders broad enough to take on the world” (219). It wouldn't have taken much to write Gabriel as bisexual as well. Instead, Jensen tried to set Von Glower up as a father or older brother figure and threw in the girlfriend-sharing to remind readers that Gabriel was a bit of a womanizer. Bah.

Anyway, most of the big adrenaline-filled moments near the end of the book wouldn't have needed to happen if Gabriel hadn't

I was hoping for some of the same “so bad it's kind of good” fun of the previous book, and instead I got something that was just bad. It was nice to finally find out how the story ended, years after getting stuck in the game, but can't recommend this book for any other reason.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Darest is a country in decline. When it still had Rathens and Rathen Champions, it was powerful, but it's been two hundred years since the death of the last Rathen. It's a shock to everyone when the Rathen Rose reacts to Soren, a nobody in the court, and proclaims her the newest Rathen Champion. Soren does her duty and begins her search for a baby Rathen who couldn't possibly exist, knowing that, once she finds the child, they'll both be in danger. While Darest may need its Rathens, Darien politics has moved on. The Regent and her son would not be happy to be displaced.

Strake, the Rathen Soren finally finds, is a grown man rather than the child Soren expected, and is filled with anger and bitterness. The Rose unfortunately makes things worse. Despite their strained relationship, Strake and Soren will have to work together if they want to survive Darien politics, the machinations of the Rose, and the being intent on killing the last Rathen.

This is one of those times when pretty cover art led to me reading something I probably should have passed by. This book ended up taking me about four months to get through, because the strained relationship between Soren and Strake was so unpleasant that just about any other book appealed to me more. If e-books were a thing you could sell or donate, I'd probably just have given up and offloaded this one.

I knew from reviews that, fairly early on, the Rose would force Soren to rape Strake. I though I could deal with that, since the scene wasn't the least bit graphic, but the aftermath wore on me. Strake was completely repulsed by Soren. Even though he knew that she'd had no choice, that the Rose had briefly taken her over and used her like a puppet, she was the one that he'd seen and felt. He'd been taken away from everyone and everything that he knew, and by his perception of time his lover had recently been killed right in front of him. This was the last straw.

Soren hated the part she'd played in the rape, but she'd essentially been raped too. She was more under the Rose's control than it was under hers. It could take her will at any moment and force her to do whatever it wished. Forcing her to rape Strake had been its way of continuing the Rathen line. Not only did she have to face all the anger and revulsion Strake turned towards her because she made a better target than the Rose, she also had to deal with being unwillingly pregnant with Strake's child.

I couldn't bring myself to like either one of these characters. I understood why Strake directed his hatred almost entirely towards Soren, but I hated how often he seemed to forget that this was terrible for her too. At one point, he almost raped Soren to pay her back for what she'd done to him, and I found myself wishing Soren had used the Rose to tear him to pieces. Soren understood why Strake hated her so much and was bitter about being nothing more than the Rose's Champion Brood Mare – but she also found herself attracted to Strake. I wasn't sure if her interest in Strake was due to the Rose's influence or not, but it mixed so terribly with all the other emotions between Soren and Strake that it made my skin crawl.

And, unfortunately, it did blossom into love. If I have the timeline right, Strake and Soren hadn't even known each other much more than a month. It didn't feel like enough time for them to have gotten over all the ugliness between them. I'd have been far more comfortable with a blossoming relationship between one of them and Aristide. There were some indications that he might end up as their third, but the primary romance was between Soren and Strake, and it absolutely didn't work for me.

I'll wrap this up by going over some of the things that did work for me. Aristide intrigued me a lot, and I wish Höst had included a glimpse at his thoughts. In public, he was slick, sharp, and sparkling, the perfect courtier. In private, he was completely closed off – all his emotions locked inside himself, and no friends, lovers, or anyone in his life that he seemed to care about. I'm crossing my fingers that he plays a significant part in the next book, because I want to know more about what's going on inside his head.

I also liked the world of this book. If it hadn't been for Soren and Strake's strained relationship, I think I'd have enjoyed the dangerous politics. Crumbling, once powerful Darest was an interesting place, and I liked getting to learn what part the Rose, Rathen, and Champion played in everything. Although Soren was largely useless – far less politically adept than Aristide, magic-less, and unable to wield the sword she'd inherited as the new Champion – the Rose did give her a few abilities. She could see everywhere in the palace, at any time, and she eventually figured out how to use the Rose to defend herself and Strake.

This was also one of the few books I've read where bisexuality and polyamorous relationships are so common and so much a part of the world that none of the characters even bat an eyelash about it all.  Those in same-sex relationships who wanted children would either come to an agreement with someone of the opposite sex in order to have a child, or they'd find someone with whom they could have a more lasting relationship. If there was any angst, it was entirely due to the way personalities meshed or didn't mesh.

All in all, Champion of the Rose didn't work for me. The rape colored everything and made this a largely unpleasant read, and Strake's progression from anger and revulsion to acceptance and love happened too soon in his and Soren's relationship to be believable. That said, I'm willing to give Höst's books another shot, and it's quite possible that I could even enjoy the next book in this duology, especially since reviews only mention Aspen, Soren's friend, and Aristide. (Which is good, since I already own the next book, as well as several others by Höst. That's what I get for buying a bunch of books by a new-to-me author.)

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Finished it last night at about 1:45am. Was totally worth the loss of sleep. I'll be buying the next book, Inheritance, ASAP! 

Full Review coming.