Elemental Fire The Hidden Realms Book #1
Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy
Buniac Entertainment, LLC
Oct 11, 2022
Kindle
354
Amazon
Sin Marston is a rare human who can see through glamor. With the veil with the treaty of 2010, the magical visitors flowed into the Terran realm. With her unique talent, Sin's services are in demand from businesses and law enforcement with hidden problems. She also has a growing clientele of hidden visitors wishing to avoid confrontation with the Human Protection Society and other anti-hidden Terrans.
After thwarting a daring art heist, Sin encounters a stunning fire elemental who reveals the heist was something very different. Everything she thought she knew changes.
Radzik Cray has lived for centuries, building his magical and political power base. The appointment as the Elders’ Council warden for the Eastern United States comes with untold wealth and power, as well as untold danger. When he meets Sin Marston, he is interested in a pleasant distraction. Instead, he discovers that Sin is not all she appears and his control over his territory is not as absolute as he thought.
Review by John Ried
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Hard to believe it but this work is EG Manetti’s first foray into the fantasy genre. This book is exceptional fun and very well balanced between romance and fantasy. Manetti has provided splendid details about her concept of the multiverse interweaving with our contemporary world without it being a tremendously heavy information dump. By slowly revealing her world through her characters, Hidden mixed and romantically entangled with mortal humans, her story stays focused and very exciting. The whole book in set in the very near future, when the existence of magical entities are confirmed and have to be integrated with our societies.
The characters are many and varied, beginning with Sin Marston who is a lovely human with hidden (pun intended) magical ancestry buried deep in her genetics. Radzik Cray, her lover and a Fire Elemental Prince trying to perform a delicate job, is a fearsome being with tremendous magical powers. Both these main characters are engaging and entertaining. As the story evolves, these two characters set the tempo for their backgrounds, settings, and interdimensional travel into the Veil of the Hidden Realms.
The creatures like goblins, dwarves, trolls, pixies, imps, and other supernatural beings abound, each chapter reveals something new about the characters and their worlds. HRAC – the Hidden Realms Affairs Council – designed to protect and represent humans/Terrans with the magical creatures beyond the veil, certainly takes institutional liberties while our main characters solve crimes, mysteries, and pool resources for everyone’s benefit.
I do not want to give away too much, but as a fantasy addict, I found myself amazed with the details and depths of the plots in here. Disapproving relatives condemning fraternization with other groups, magical glamour used by the hidden beings to disguise their appearance, and enchanted items stumbled upon in museums and archeological digs manifesting themselves after being dormant for centuries, add to the suspense and the drama.
Oh, how could I not mention the sex? The sexual undercurrents and encounters are certainly fulfilling and expectantly manifest themselves. Of course, the young lady Sin gets in over her head and it falls to her lover Radzik Cray, or Rad for short, to bail her out with his magical powers and minions occasionally at first. Sin Marston as a character though, develops surprisingly and is able to hold her own when she has too. When she explains herself to several nearly omnipotent beings and confronts the Elder’s Council, Sin displays wit, flexibility and courage. She is definitely not a drooping lily.
There are also many links to contemporary social, political, and economic issues within the contemporary urban settings and all the magic surrounding everyone. Illegal drug smuggling including concentrated ibuprofen and caffein affecting hidden races like goblins, imps and others, the Human Protection Society which wants to destroy or exploit the Hidden visitors, and even hunting trophy collections of goblin ears all enhance the astonishing richness to the various plots which do interconnect nicely. The Hidden amongst us generally try to play nice until humans unearth very powerful artifacts we really should not have.
The members of the Human Protection Society, HPS, are a creepy and reflect extremist attitudes. How all of this can separate and even destroy families is clearly illustrated. And we have a splendid, climax of action, tragedy and triumph which leaves me eager for more. If I can find my nefarious mind-control device… ahh here it is. If you enjoy high fantasy and low fantasy connected with interplanar travel, then READ THIS BOOK! You will enjoy it and hope to see more!
ROMANCE/PARANORMAL/FANTASY
