The Forge: Discoveries

Reviewed by Katherine Warwick © 2006

Wild Child Publishing.com © 2006

Title: The Forge: Discoveries
Author: Shaunna Wolfe
Publisher: Freya's Bower
ISBN: 1934060159
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Length: Novella
Release Date: July 2006
Rating: Beyond Sizzling

Shaunna Wolfe's The Forge is an imaginative, visually vibrant and satisfying read.

From the first page, we are drawn into a world thriving with bold, bizarre detailed and real creatures, some part human, some not. But it doesn't matter — the characters share the emotional, deep qualities that live in all of us and that is why we care about them and what they do and, ultimately, where they go.

The Forge, book one in Ms. Wolfe's Discoveries series, begins with the exotic and lovely Jezren and her lover, otherworldly Din'arik. The fact that they are discussing marriage and commitment and have not taken that step foreshadows a black moment for Jezren when her truest love is killed defending her life. Though he is physically dead, his soul lives on in her magic sword. His death is an event she can never forget nor wholly move on from, and we feel her pain and loss as it hovers over her every move thereafter.

Jezren, a mercenary who serves The Order, is a bounty hunter. In The Forge, she is transporting a loathsome mix of human and non–human criminals to their final place of punishment when she has a one–nighter with a man along the way. Inhabiting that man's body is her lover, Din'arik. It isn't until later, even after an intimate yet tender encounter with Din'arik's brother, that she realizes his soul can never be free until the anniversary of his death.

In the end, she plots to find more than just those criminals she's hired to hunt. She hunts for others whose body her Din'arik can borrow so she can be with him — even if only for moments at a time.

The Forge visually unfolded in my mind through Ms. Wolfe's exceptional descriptions of worlds and people as real as our world. The connection between Jezren and Din'arik is deep and more than lust, which I particularly appreciated. There are places in Ms. Wolfe's writing that are lovely — beyond well done, making The Forge a satisfying, pleasurable read.

Rating: 4 cats

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