Review: The Prince of Winds by Tali Spencer

Reviewed by Fehu
The Prince of Winds by Tali Spencer
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 168pgs
3.75 Pants Off (Almost A 4)

Blurb:
Rimmon may be an eagle warrior, but he’s never known war, and he’s never known love—until his kingdom’s army is destroyed by Ekari, the demon of winds, and he is captured by Melkor, one of the Iron Horde that has been killing off the world's gods. Those gods have cursed Melkor and his brothers to be conquerors and never to be loved, but Melkor, hoping to overcome his fate, carries Rimmon off to his island. 

There, he heals Rimmon’s wounds and teaches him about sexual pleasure, earning the young warrior’s trust and fanning the flames of an attraction both men yearn to embrace. But the curses of vengeful gods are difficult to break, especially when Rimmon discovers Melkor is the demon who destroyed his home.

Review:
Battling princes, battle eagles, enemies to lover, magic, and three brothers cursed by the gods to never finding love all sounded very promising.  I thought the world building quite interesting, even if it was a bit hard to imagine where all the countries were and what gods resided where, I think a map would have been helpful for that.

Rimmon is the prince of Ake, a small kingdom with eagle warriors to protect it. The warrior bond with the giant birds early and can see through their eyes and direct them in a fight.  While the eagle warriors were faring well against other threats, the Horde and its princes greatly out powered them.  It’s after an attack that Rimmon finds himself injured and alone with only his eagle Ayet to care for him. Melkor one of the demon princes and the one, who is mainly responsible for the defeat of Rimmon’s warrior, since he commands the winds, is immediately taken with the prince and his bird.

The romance between Rimmon and Melkor was hot, though I had hoped that it would take them longer to get together, then again the whole book wasn't that long, just over 100 pages, so it might have been that.  Plus point, is the hot sex scenes and the taming of the prince. I wasn't bored with the book and did get sucked into it right away. The characters were interesting and I liked the whole history how the three-demon princes came about, and what drove them to conquer the lands.

On the not so pretty side, there is violence, mention of rape and disgusting display of enemy heads. The yikes moment was when it was mentioned, that to gain a healing elixir they had to cook up a god or a child of a god, especially after they had to apply this elixir to Rimmon, in a fairly predictable way. The whole explanation why it could only be applied like that did not really make sense and sounded far fetched to me. I understand he has to hold it in his body. Why couldn't he drink it or hold the elixir in his mouth for that matter?

I’m still not sure how Rimmon and Melkor fell in love, in lust I understood that but love? I think here I would have liked to see a more romantic development and if that were done, I would have given it a better rating. One could see that Melkor cared, but then again for being the gentlest of demons, he was quite barbaric.

Prince of the Winds had the potential to be a great read, if one has a weakness for captive princes. I am looking forward to read something longer from this author, because that might prove more satisfying.