The Captivity of Choice - William R. Herr

                The Captivity of Choice is the second book in William R. Herr’s Broken Throne series that is set in a fantasy world where young girls become strong warriors, prophets can change the world, and the shadows hold all sorts of untold evil. I hadn’t read the first book in the series and, although sometimes you can get away without reading the previous books in a series, in this case I think it would be quite beneficial to do so. Trying to figure out what was going on, the past history, and character relationships really took away from my enjoyment of the story. Nothing is explained about this world in this book so for the first going off the pace was quite slow for me. After I read a bit and found my footing in regards to the back story (google helps wonders when I looked up book one), I found myself enjoying the book much more. It is very “battle-centered” and much of it revolves around the lives of some of the soldiers and there are lots of logistics about how battles will go down. I don’t really understand a whole lot of that sort of thing. There is romance but not in the traditional bodice-ripping sense. Instead, the love story between Gidon and Kira is more in-depth and their relationship is quite intricate and somewhat forbidden. It is just this that makes the love story more realistic than most because it’s not all about lust. Gidon and Kira actually respect each other which makes their positions in the army all the more difficult. 

                There is also another part to the book that involves a prophet named Malachi. I found this part to be much less interesting that Kira and Gidon but that’s probably because I became quite invested in those two characters and wanted to keep getting back to them.

                Mr. Herr’s writing style is quite unique. It’s not the easiest to read and although there is flow to it, it does get quite dark at times. In other words, this is by no means a “feel good” novel. It is quite challenging at times but if you stick with it then you’ll be rewarded with a detailed world and fantastic story. It’s not a book for everyone but dark fantasy lovers will probably be delighted by this book and the rest of the series.

                I read this in digital format and it translated from print to ereader well. I can’t say the cover did a whole lot to entice me but it does follow the style of most dark fantasy novels.