Reviewed by Nina
TITLE: The Stolen Luck
AUTHOR: Shawna Reppert
PUBLISHER: Carina Press
LENGTH: 230 pages / 78k words
BLURB: How far will a good man go to save his home and loved ones?
Lord James Dupree must recover his family’s stolen Luck, the elven talisman that has protected the Dupree lands for generations. Without the talisman, the Dupree vineyards are failing and creditors are closing in. The Luck is his only hope of saving his home and his family from poverty and ruin.
Despite his abhorrence of slavery, James wins an elven slave in a game of cards. The slave, Loren, provides the only chance to enter the Lands Between and recover the stolen Luck. Despite James’s assurances and best intentions, Loren does not trust his new master and James finds it all too easy to slip into the role of slave master when Loren defies him.
As the two work together through hardship and danger, James finds himself falling in love with Loren. And when a hidden enemy moves against them, he must choose between his responsibility to his family and his own soul.
REVIEW:
A long overdue review doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the book, just like the fact that the story’s gone a bit fuzzy in my mind doesn’t mean that it’s unmemorable – just that I suddenly started having an actual life. Beyond books. Crazy, I know… where will I end up?
Shawna Reppert’s writing is incredibly atmospheric. Now that I’ve started reading GoT (Game of Thrones, in case there’s anyone out there who didn’t know yet), which I hadn’t at the time I was reading this, I can draw a parallel between her writing and George R.R. Martin’s, as far as descriptions are concerned. Sounds, smells, images and actions literally came to life before my eyes every time I opened the book, making getting emotionally involved in the story that much easier – as if there’d been any need to do that.
Since The Stolen Luck is heavily character-centred, James’ and Loren’s personalities are fully developed. They’re deeply different, with a different history and different ways of thinking, but neither of them is developed better than the other or painted in a more favourable light, and it’s easy to see why they would fall in love with each other – and why the reader would fall in love with them. I could say they’re honourable, kind, stubborn, good-hearted, fallible… but half of the joy of reading this book lies in getting to know them.
The secondary characters are just as likeable, from James’ family to the servants in his house, and although they’re not as well developed as the main characters, they add flavour and colour to the story.
The plot is pretty much classic fantasy fare. A magical artefact, the eponymous Luck, was stolen from the Duprees and supposedly brought back to the Lands Between. James wants it back… but he’ll need an elven guide to accompany him, and there is no possible way to get an elf to willingly help a human, so James is forced to take advantage of the existence of one of the institutions he hates the most – slavery.
So yes, Loren is a slave, technically, but he is in no way James’ slave – he doesn’t want to be, and James doesn’t want him to be. Their relationship is very complicated from this point of view, yet at the same time incredibly simple: James needs Loren to help him and he knows the only way he’ll do it is if forced, but he doesn’t want him to be in any way subordinated to him; Loren wants to be free, and he wants to help James – he wants to run away, and for some weird reason sometimes he feels as if he almost wanted to stay.
Watching them slowly become aware of their feelings for the other, not rushing straight into promises of eternal love but making their way through hatred and disgust, grudging respect, friendship, lust and deep affection, is torturous, heartwarming and incredibly refreshing.
The last third of the book is tense, adventurous and suspenseful, seemingly leading up to an explosive climax, but the resolution is exactly what let me down (a little bit), in its rushed, almost simplistic, told-rather-than-shown resolution, yet it couldn’t make me like the novel any less.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Nina rates it – 
BUY LINKS: Carina Press :: Amazon :: All Romance eBooks
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Nina is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.
To read all her reviews, click the link: NINA’S REVIEWS
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