REVIEW: 'Kestrel's Talon' by Bey Deckard
Title: Kestrel’s Talon
Series: The Stonewatchers Book #1
Author: Bey Deckard
Published: May 23, 2016
Publisher: Self-published
Cover Artist: Bey Deckard
Genre: Erotic Romance; Paranormal Romance; Historical Fantasy
Length: 418 pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; M/M/M; Menage; Asexual; Paranormal-Shifter (Werebear); HEA
BLURB:
Following the Prentish/Nemarri war, Kes is rejected by his homeland under the guise of religious purity laws. Though he's spared execution, the proud Nemarri's fate is only marginally more merciful than death when he is sold into sexual slavery at a prosperous pleasure house.
Despite his stoic endurance, Kes knows he’s reaching his breaking point, but there is nothing he can do—there is no path to freedom in the Holy Prentish Empire, only a lifetime of humiliating servitude.
That is, until a beautiful young slave and his formidable master approach Kes in the marketplace and make an astonishing offer to take him home with them. The only problem: “home” is the accursed Horthmont Castle from the scare-stories of Kes’s childhood.
Thrown into a world of living myth, powerful magic, and ancient gods, Kes learns the secrets kept hidden by Horthmont’s thick blackstone walls. There he discovers something he thought he’d never know again: hope for the future.
4 HEART READ
REVIEW:
ANCIENT MAGIC
In Kestrel’s Talon, the first book in The Stonewatchers series, Bey Deckard creates a believable war-torn medieval land. With careful attention to detail, readers become interested in its history, inhabitants, and culture.
There are many types of magic. One of the oldest is to spin a great tale.
Count Strade brings Talon, his slave, to help buy another slave. Talon and Kes are drawn together. But nothing is as it seems. Talon may officially be his slave, but Grimma’s culture didn’t believe in slavery.
Strade and Talon are not who they appear. Ancient magic binds them together painfully. Kes, born as a free man and bought as Talon’s “plaything,” struggles with the concept of freedom. He is actually the touchstone who may bring the three men healing.
At it turns out, Talon, born into slavery, holds a philosophy which leaves him freer than Strade. And Kes, who longed for freedom, discovers it’s real meaning through binding himself to others. As Talon tells him,“I’d hardly call you pathetic, Kes. How is it weak to lean against another in a time of need?”
In Kestrel’s Talon, Mr. Deckard has created a perfect vehicle to explore the fluid nature of reality, freedom, sexuality and love.
Strade is asexual, yet he can love and enhance the sexuality of Talon and Kes. Born with both male and female sexuality, Hessa, the strongest hunter, becomes Kes’ confidant, and a bridge for the three main characters.
In an interesting plot device, the current day narrative is longitudinal, while historic facts are revealed on a “need to know” basis. While this is logical, the book is dense with facts, and the time jumps require readers to keep track. Thus it’s a better vacation book, than one read a few chapters at a time in a busy schedule.
I truly enjoyed Kestrel’s Talon, watching the disparate details weave together by the end. And having a the triangle with an asexual gave me new insight into the nature of attraction.
A copy of Kestrel’s Talon was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by Bey Deckard, in exchange for our fair and honest opinion.
Artist, Writer, Dog Lover
Born and raised in a small coastal town in northern Québec, Bey spent his early summers on his uncle’s boat and running wild on the beaches of the surrounding islands, lighting fires and building huts out of driftwood and fishermen’s nets. As an adult, he eventually made his way to university and earned a degree in Art History with a strong focus on Anthropology. Primarily a portrait painter and graphic artist, Bey sat down one day and decided to start writing.
Bey currently lives in the wilds of Montréal with his best buddy, a ridiculous, spotty pit bull named Murphy.
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The less formal version goes a little like this:
Educated in Art, History, and Anthropology. Worked mostly in the software industry. Currently an author and freelance graphic designer. Painter. Proud pit bull owner. I'm told I'm one helluva cook.
Started to write in 2014. Love it. Will keep doing it until I stop.
I mainly read KGB/CIA thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, graphic novels, medical texts, nautical history
