Feature book: Sword of Darkness

Sword of Darkness by Keri Arthur

Series: Relic Hunters #2
Subgenre: urban fantasy
Release date: 25 Oct 2022
Publisher: self-published
Format: ebook and print
Length: 356 pages
RRP: $6.99 (ebook); $30.79 (print)

My two favourite pixies are back! This time I get to review book 2 in the Relic Hunters series.

Loved it!

Bethany and Lugh, the brother and sister duo—aided by a cast of characters—are back on the hunt for the Sword of Darkness which was stolen in Book One. They need to find it before the other two Claws of Agrona and it are reunited, and chaos will rain down upon the world. So, the race to find it continues. It’s an adventure-filled ride.

Bethany and Lugh are aided by natural enemies in a light elf, Mathi, and dark elf, Cynwrig. There are a few other characters ‘helping’ them investigate, research, steal into places they shouldn’t be and generally get into a lot of strife. They meet lots of new colourful characters, both friend and foe, along the way.

The Sword of Darkness calls darkness to it and there are folks out there determined to make the darkness disappear so the enemy cannot walk in the light. Our intrepid crew is dead set against that being the outcome.

Information from Bethany’s newly discovered godly father and a hag goddess, through a few other magic users, comes in cryptic and often unhelpful clues and sends the team off on a few tangents. Bethany’s newly activated powers of the wind are brought to bear with some interesting results. Some of them are painful and some just don’t kick in when needed. She’s flying blind on a number of things and not getting much of an education about it all from those who should be helping. It’s a ‘sort it out yourself’ mentality even as things keep going wrong and a bit of education would surely help.

There are funny moments as the two elves—neither of whom would marry a pixie—vie for Bethany’s sexy self. 62 years of age for a pixie is about 1/5 of her lifespan, so she’s still relatively young. Elves are also long-lived though her elves are both much older in years than Bethany.

Lugh has a love interest because he finally stopped running from it, and that adds some moments of fun and lightness too. She spent ten years of her life in a relationship with Mathi and is now very happily dallying with Cynwrig. Smoking hot is how he comes off.

There aren’t too many male pixies out there for Bethany to consider marrying so why not brush off the cobwebs with a sexy dark elf who can also help their quest. Win-win-win.

Did I mention Cynwrig is smoking hot?

The ending of this book is cliff-hanging stuff and Book 3 needs to come soon, please, Keri!

reviewed by Sharon

A review copy of this book was provided by the author.