Reviewed by Taylin
TITLE: Lantern
SERIES: Danubian #1
AUTHOR: Charlie Godwyne
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 202 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 31, 2023
BLURB:
In the black night, I alone uphold the shrine of the seven lantern gods.
In the year 2448, Central Europe, after centuries of decline, has bottomed out into a brutal Dark Age. Warlords now rule the lands, fighting and dying to shelter their regions from near-constant invasions.
Hidden through secrecy, camouflage, and a touch of magic lies a monastery deep in the Alps where Wren of Helvetica has been training as an initiate mage for more than half his life. His quiet routine is overthrown when he receives a message from the woman who rescued him from being sold into slavery as a child. Ingeborg herself is a wandering mage but has found a warlord sponsor and is now his court magician.
In the mountains dividing this warrior king’s land in half lies a solitary shrine where seven lanterns burn to the gods of an older world. The elderly mystic who manned the shrine has died; whether by murder or natural causes, no one knows. For the sake of appeasing these gods and protecting the peace of the region, Wren has been summoned to take this man’s place.
Settling into a new life that is much more dangerous and lonely than he’s used to, Wren takes up protection of the lanterns and tries to reestablish contact with the supernatural forces therein. One day he comes back from foraging to find a large man—Uli—filling the shrine, a man with humor in his eyes when Wren admits to not knowing who he is.
The two fall together and become not only fast friends but lovers. Within the power magnified by their love, seven lanterns tell Wren about Uli’s secret. As Wren begins to connect to the deep roots of the mountain shrine and the gods of earth and sky that watch over this gentle, sacred place, he finds himself taking his heart in hand and giving it to a brutal warrior.
Though society dictates they cannot belong to each other, Uli is determined that Wren be his.
By the light of the seven lanterns in a dark night with whirling stars, they hide away in each other and create a precious love that lights the world and gives them strength.
Lantern is a 56,000-word MM standalone romance containing magical realism, mystic mages, and dark age warriors. It contains no cheating and a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
The Danubian Series contains standalone MM love stories of the Danube River region, past and future, featuring the magic of this world and deeply spiritual men who find home in each other.
REVIEW:
Wren is tasked to take over the shrine of the seven lanterns, which is a connection to seven Gods. While there, he meets Uli, a warrior who is more than a burly bloke with a sword.
Lantern is the first in a series of standalone stories along the Danube River Region. With the promise of Gods, magic, and mystics, this was a futuristic story I looked forward to reading and desperately wanted to like. Unfortunately, for me, it fell well short.
The story is told in the first person, exclusively from Wren’s viewpoint. Technically, it wasn’t great. Among other things, there were phrases like ‘I would now’ (mixed tenses) and ‘I myself’ (redundant intensive pronoun). There is the argument for saying that these are merely turns of phrase, but they set off my irritation scale. Worldbuilding is also detailed, with Wren describing his actions down to closing a bolt and why. This level of detail seems to be a marmite thing among readers.
At the beginning of the book, there is a glossary of terms and a cast list – which I found helpful. From that, it was clear that being physical with others was permitted, and I looked forward to reading more. However, many explanations were repeated multiple times, as Wren tended to think and repeat something aloud. I also lost count of the times I was told Wren spent fifteen years at the monastery and that he and his lovers were no more, and when Wren left, Marit and Corbi, it was a truly emotional experience. However, at one point, Wren stated that he couldn’t return to the monastery three times over three paragraphs in a row.
The images of the area around the cabin were lovely, and I got a sense of the simple life surrounded by mountains and trees. Wren had to relocate from a monastery to a recluse’s hut with a dog, and the loneliness came through. But, he was also there to look after the Gods, or at least do something with them, which got somewhat lost between Wren’s moping for his old life, doing his laundry, and missing Uli.
The story is the authors’ view of Austria three hundred years in the future. However, I think the author has tried to include too much. Less would have been more. The Gods are there, but they don’t feature much other than in a few visions or a flickering candle, and there are multiple explanations instead of story progression. More could have been made from Wren learning to converse with people on a higher plane of existence and their influence over the King’s reign. E.g., the use of phantasms could have been put to better use.
For most of this story, I was overwhelmed with repeated explanations about astral planes and other things, which made me feel like an onlooker rather than a participant. All this interrupted the story flow, further disconnecting me from the characters. It is a shame because this tale had great potential. All it needed was more focus and a damned good edit – hence the mediocre marking.
RATING: 
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