Starfire, not to be.

Starfire, by author Kate Douglas, is the third book in her Demon Slayers series. I am judging this series based on JUST Starfire as I had not previously heard of this author until recently. Based solely on my experience with this one book...I am not impressed.

Plot:

The women of Lemuria are still in chains. Selyn, the daughter of an enslaved warrior brutally attacked by a vicious guard, has survived - but barely. Beaten and terrified, Selyn must overcome her deep-set fears and trust her life to the only man who can help her: Dawson Buck. Dawson is a man from Earth who has crossed through the portal into Lemuria. Dawson is a gifted healer and utilizes his skills and knowledge to renew her body and strengthen her spirit. In the process he awakens a compelling passion she has never known. But she cannot yield...Selyn seeks revenge for herself and her mother and all the Forgotten Ones who continue to toil in secret. If Dawson helps her, his own life may be forfeit and for Selyn, true love does not ask such sacrifices...

So the Forgotten Ones are a hundred or so women whose Mothers all once fought for their country, but got locked away in the caves of Lemuria after battling demon-kind roughly a millennium ago. I might add Lemuria is a continent on Earth which is underwater, so I guess these guys don't need to eat or drink anything to survive. Ok, I can deal with that, BUT how do all these women get enslaved in the first place and no one seems to care that it happened?

The Queen knew about it, or more accurately she's an accomplice seeing as her husband is the one responsible for the prison camps. And when confronted on why she let this happen, the Queen simply says because she loved the guy. Huh. Really, your highness? I'm pretty sure that if my husband locked up all these warrior women in slave-labor mining camps (AKA pretty much all of Lemuria since it's under water) and furthermore knowing they were being raped and beaten, I'm 100% sure I would have something to say and divorce his butt in an instant. She is Queen after all. And of course all of a sudden this Queen suddenly feels bad? All these years later? Really? Ok so what does she do for these women she's enslaved? ....Oh right she gives one of the women a bathrobe and a pair of flip flops. Nice, super classy. It isn't like she's absolute monarch or anything.

The plot did not pull me in at all, to the point I actually had to stop reading it half way through. That's something I normally never do. These people who have been locked up for years and years are suddenly found and saved, it's all just a little too neat and tidy for my tastes. A couple of talking swords and a dog hosting a trapped fairy soul were about the most entertaining things in this story.

Also our main characters Dawson and Selyn had little to no spark going on between them. Nothing stood out with these guys, and that's really a shame because I can see how this series could be really compelling if it held a bit more of an edge. Instead, he's a mortal Vet with a soft heart and she's an immortal warrior chick so she has to protect him. Yawn. Tired and true plot that pushes no boundaries and has no surprises. This book was just not for me. To be fair, maybe if I had read it from the start of the series I would feel differently, but I honestly don't know.

Maybe those who know the series will get something more out of this...for me it fell short.

2 BumperWillow Sheep

KD