Review: Knight Awakened

by Coreene Callahan
Rating: 35

In AD 1331, warlord Vladimir Barbu seizes control of Transylvania. But in spite of his bloody triumph, his claim to the throne remains out of reach. The king of Hungary opposes his rule, the Transylvanian people despise his brutal ways, and the high priestess needed to crown him has vanished without a trace. But Barbu hasn’t come this far only to be thwarted by a woman. He unleashes his best hunters to track her down and bring her to him—dead or alive. For Xavian Ramir, killing is the only life he has ever known. Torn from his family when he was a child, he was trained from an early age to be an elite assassin. But now he longs for something more, vowing to start anew after one last job. The bounty on his target’s head is enough to set him up for good—if he can resist the long-dead conscience that stirs to life when he meets his beautiful mark. Afina Lazar never wanted to become high priestess, but the brutal murders of her beloved mother and sister leave her no choice. Now she is running for her life, desperate to protect the magical amulet entrusted to her care. But when Barbu’s assassin comes for her, she realizes her only chance of stopping the warlord’s rise to power is to convince this enigmatic—and handsome—hunter that she is more valuable alive than dead.

I love Coreene Callahan’s Dragonfury series, love love, love it. I enjoy the way that the characters are all smart like normal people. Everytime I expect the heroine or hero to do something absolutely stupid to move the plot forward…. they don’t and it’s such a relief. Knight Awakened, book one of the Circle of Seven series however I wasn’t sure about. It appeared to be a straight historical set in medieval Transylvania. But it isn’t it’s a paranormal historical.

Afina Lazar is the High Priestess, in hiding from Vladimir Barbu who needs her to approve him as the rightful ruler to get access to the coffers and throne. Afina can’t and won’t do that because he isn’t the rightful ruler.

Xavian Ramir is a former assassin and tracking Afina for Vladimir when he realises that the baby she’s looking after is a former comrade of his. Unable to betray the last request that was made to take care of the child Xavian kidnaps them both to take back to his castle, in order to keep them safe from Vladimir.

This definitely skews toward the paranormal side of a paranormal historical. Not that I’m complaining, I enjoyed it immensely. There are assassins, dragon-shifters, goddesses and all sorts of fun. Despite the medieval-ish time period it’s really feels like a lot fun, and the magic sort fits with the setting in a way I liked.

I thought the subplot about Bianca not being Afina’s biological child and Bianca and Bogdan were sadly not really dealt with. I mean Xavian does find out that Afina’s a virgin and so obviously not Bianca’s mother, which makes him flip out over the “lies”, but the connection of Bogdan and even the question of who is the mother never gets mentioned.

Some of the background elements weren’t prominent enough, like the Al Pacii’s assassin trainer and leader Halál, who acts in a way that moves the plot forward but doesn’t really do anything but sit around being evil. Shay is interesting and I look forward to learning more about him. I am really interested in Henrik, why does he also have the goddess’ mark, is he meant to be the High Priest? Does it mean anything? I like Xavian and Afina, they were actually really sweet together and the way they stumbled into the love that they shared was really endearing.

In summary, it wasn’t as strong as the Dragonfury series, but it was still excellent and I look forward to Knight Avenged.

Currently Listening: Need You Now – Lady Antebellum