(The Dreamer Triology #3)
Lily Bryg never thought she would end up magically locked away in Graindoth with Ronan. And actually kind of liking it. Now that she's bound to the castle for three days, he's let down some of his walls, giving her a look at a side of him she never knew existed. But how could she be starting to like the guy who not only ruined her life, but the lives of her friends as well? The fate of the entire realm rests with her, and in order to become the Dreamer of prophecy, Lily is going to have to start making choices she wouldn't have made only three months ago. Her fellow witches are trying to find a way to help her, while juggling their own love lives and the Rebellion at the same time.
Add to the equation the fact she's still very much in love with both Devlin werewolves, and her traitorous best friend is living in the castle with her, and Lily's troubles just keep growing larger and larger. When in doubt Lily and her friends have always turned to magic for guidance, and now they're desperately struggling to form alliances with dragons and faeries before the final battle. She needs to figure out her heart, her soul mate, and decide once and for all how she plans on taking the throne. What kind of ruler she wants to be, and who she really wants to rule at her side.
Demons and dark fey she can handle, but making a choice like this might just kill her.
Review:
Three men, two soul mates, one woman. Who´s bluffing for her love.
Lily has to stay in Graindoth for three days after Brid chooses The Dark King´s side. What Lily didn´t now was that Ronan could make those 72 hrs into 72 days :S . As day pass she gets to know the real Ronan at least the nice side of him. He´s not as evil as he looks and she gets to see that the way he manages his kingdom is for the good of the people. He makes justice but... not in a very conventional way. He tortures and mutilates the people that are caught doing some felony. Lily and the people of Bevain don´t want him to rule like that. While she´s in Graindoth she witnesses through "Keegan´s" memories how he (Keegan) killed Larkin and Lily is devastated and kills him. She is torn between the love of 2 wolves and the Dark king. She is so confused. I can´t believe how hard was for her to give up the mutts.!!!
Who´s gonna win her heart and rule by her side forever?...
***SPOILER ALERT***
The book was great.! I laughed and cried in the right parts and enjoyed this story till the end. I was hooked. These series have a great plot but....I´m slightly disappointed of how this book ended. Everything that was written since the first book about Ronan and Lily was meant for them to be together and him to let his good side out and win her love. I think the writer got sidetracked by the wolves and the love they claimed to have for her. The three books where about Ronan stalking her in her dreams and her liking him since the beginning but denying her feelings. I think she was afraid of what would people think about her if she chose Ronan instead. She did have the option to choose him. Even her friends told her so. Flynn knew she was attracted to him. EVERYONE KNEW.
I think they would have been the perfect match. They were meant for each other and the darkness she let herself out when she was staying in Graindoth was by her choice not his. He only let her be. She could have been by his side and not let the dark overpower her. Seriously.!! He opened himself to her so much. He showed her not only the bad but the good and the reason he killed the former king of Bevain. He saved her from being drowned in the lake, saved her after she hit her head when Caer was casting a spell on her to see who her soul mate was. Even when he didn´t want to give her pendant back (which I think he was a douche) but still he cared so much about her. He just wanted her by his side. To be together.
Conall and Larking were practiaclly in competition in who will she choose since the beginning. More Larking than Conall. Larking seemed like he wanted to force her at his will without being too obvious. They almost didn´t speak about their past with her even when she remembered some things and I think they were all lying to her in some way or another. Ronan was the only one who tell her the truth always. He admitted to love her, wanting her, and that he was going to take her whatever the cost. Very cheeky Dark King i might say.
People gave Ronan too much credit of what he had done in the past. I´m not saying he didn´t do all those bad things 300 years ago, but people changed their version of what really happened always making him look as someone too evil and vicious. Kind of a sociopath but is understandable after knowing what happened to his parents.
They all want to defeat him because he has killed people. People he claims that are his enemies. No one ever said who he killed and why really. The Sidhe king, Lily and the other rulers are killing people too in the name of justice (Their justice) because they have enemies too. What does that make them. Dark Kings too? Murderers like Ronan?
It was Brids right to decide to which side she wanted to go, but I really didn´t appreciate Bran being separated from her. 300 years ago he sided with Ronan and betrayed him for her. She was way to easy to manipulate and at the end she was exiled from Bevain and sent back to NYC. Bran turned his back to his one and only soul mate very easily just to be in Lily´s graces. That was stupid. Seriously no one gives their back to their soul mate. Conall is way to noble for her. We needed a balance of good and bad no pure light. In the mortal world we don´t live like that. I´M PISSED.!!!
There are always two sides for every story.
He lied and schemed and plot against her and her people in order to get her. Always making sure she was not getting harmed as well as her friends in the way. He did everything in the name of love. She was literally playing hard to get. She should have chosen Ronan since the beginning.
"ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR"
I think Ronan was so much in love with Lily that he would have given up most of his darkness and bring peace to the people of Bevain providing the perfect balance just by being with her.
I feel like there were missing A LOT of explations like for example:
1. They never said exactly how each of them died and why? - They only make us think he was the one sending his people to kill them.
2 . In the first book:
"Good luck with the pain that I bring you Liliandra. That´s more luck then you gave for the pain you´ve brought me". - I really thought there was so much more than "I have been hunting you for 300 years because I want you and that´s why i´m in pain".
or
The tapestries
The first was of a woman sitting by a stream, her hand brushing the surface of the water. At her back stood a man, hiding behind her the large trunk of a tree. He seemed as though he was watching her, a small smile touching his lips.
In the second one, the same woman was singing with a bue bird on perched on her hand. This time the man watched her while leaning up against a wooden building. The woman, however, didn´t seem to notice.
The last tapestry was a little different. This time the man wasn´t hiding. Instead, he was standing behind the woman, with his arms tightly wrapped around her waist. Her head was titled up, as if she were trying to look at him behind her but couldn´t turn all the way. In her hazel eyes tears were beginning to form.
Lily swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared at the woven threads that made up the forms of both her and Ronan. This was insane. Where eer she was she didn´t like it.
"Did any of this actually happened?" She asked before he could think better of it.
He shrugged his shoulders an then stepped over the first tapestry. He ran his hand over the material, stopping to stroke the depiction of her cheek.
"Yes. They were created out of memory. But I guess it´s obvious that you don´t remember" - Again I really thought there was so much more of them together 300 years ago that she couldn´t remember and still she chose someone else. I never saw anything in the books that could make me fell in love with the wolves. Where the tapestries a lie so she could fall for him or what?
3. Sleibhin´s mom is the girl Ronan was hanging around before his parents were murdered? - It wasn´t explained why he was screwing Sleibhin´s mom if he was so in love with Lily
4. When she drowns in the lake he connects with her:
This was a safe place. There was no cause for fear here, she could not be harmed.
After all, it was hers. Sacred ground that couldn’t be marred with violence or turmoil.
“Ronan.” Her voice sounded as sweet as honey, her eyes glimmering with glee.
Dropping down beside her, he reached out a hand and gently brushed his fingers
against her soft cheek. Trailing it down, he touched her shoulder and down her arm,
spiking a shiver in her.
“You are so beautiful.”
Her smile widened. “I’ve been told much worse.”
“Lily, you scared me. Gods, did you scare me. I was so afraid… I thought I’d lost
you.” He rested his forehead against hers, and breathed in her scent. Already his nerves
were calm, his heart beating at an even pace. Fast, but still even.
“Lost me? Ronan, you can’t lose what you’ve never had.” Immediately she placed
a finger to his lips when he lifted his head. “No, don’t speak of it. Not here. Here, there is
just me, and just you. We aren’t the King of Bevain, or the Dreamer, not in this place.”
“Then neither are we enemies. Nor are we good or bad,” he added, his voice just
as quiet as hers.
She nodded. “No, we aren’t.”
Ronan stared down at her, into her hazel eyes and almost let the sigh pass his lips.
“Then let me love you,” he finally said. “Here, where neither of us is who we are,
let me love you, Lily. Please. Just this once, let me be the man you would want to touch
you. The man you can be proud of,” his eyes searched hers. “The man you could love.”
Now her smile did fade, and she glanced away as a sudden sadness came over her.
“Love is a tricky thing, Ronan. I won’t recall anything that happens here, between
us, not when I awake.”
“And when you don’t, I’ll have no proof that you gave into me, this once.
Liliandra, I’ve waited a million lifetimes for you. I’d wait a million more, if you’d only
let me touch you, just this once, without a fight, without a rejection. I want you to give
freely.”
He’d never dreamed of ending up in this position. Here she was right next to him
and she wasn’t pushing him away. In fact, there were no signs on her face of scorn or
derision. If he could hold onto this moment, make it last forever, he would. This was all
he wanted. All he needed. Everything and anything he’d done in the past three hundred
years had all been for this. With her, he could fathom being someone else. Being…better.
Before he could continue the thought, she wrapped a hand around the back of his
skull and pulled him down for a kiss.
His head spun, and his heart soared. She was kissing him. Not the other way
around. For once, her kisses were being given to him. It was a billion times better than
what he’d dreamed of. He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but she beat him to it.
“If things had been different, if you weren’t darkness, and I wasn’t light, then I
could see myself with you, Ronan. If things had been different…”
He felt her consciousness shift, struggled to hold onto the dream world she’d
created as her mind struggled to wake up.
No. Just a little longer. That’s it. A moment more to be like this. Like how we
should be… - They had too bigger connection than the one she had with the wolves. Why would she use her "unconsciousness" as excuse to allow herself to be with him. Further in the book she does the same and meets with him in the woods.
Larkin:
High Prince of Faolan, after his fathers dead he became the King of the Faolan. He doesn´t trust Lily is in good shape to fight with the Dark King. He doesn´t have faith in her and her capabilities. At the first fight he had with her he went looking for Whiltierna a she wolf I´m pretty sure he screwed in the past. Even though he didn´t do anything with her after Lily came back to Bevain but still. he lied....WTH.!!
"What does he mean by that, exactly?" The thought of another girl making the moves on her wolf-She stopped herself before she could go on. When had Larkin become hers? And what right did she have to be mad at him for acting the ways he was in front of his cousin if at the mere mention of another girl she flipped?
"Nothing" Larkin told her, turning so that he could face both her and Conall.
"Whilt is just a member of our pack. She´s got a crush on me, that´s all.
Before he knew what he intended, he was knocking loudly on Whiltierna´s door. The she wolf was frowning when she opened the door, her wheat color curls in disarray as if she´d just risen from bed. Her chocolate eyes widened when she realized it was him. "Larkin? What are you doing here?" He took a breath and frowned. What was he doing there? Whilt´s room was the closest to Lily´s that didn't belong to one of the Four, and he definitely wasn't going to talk to Brid or Caer about his jealousy. But this was a terrible idea. He wasn't going to talk to Brid or Caer about his jealousy. But this was a terrible idea. He wasn't that desperate, and he hadn't actually seen anything...
He also wanted to control her at his will and I didn´t like it. At the end of the book.. I wasn´t glad she chose Conall over Ronan but still was happy because she didn´t chose Larkin.
"Can we talk?" Larkin stepped even closer now and he finally turned to face him. She shook her head, fearing where this conversation was going. "Lark-"
"Im so happy for you," he surprised her by saying. "I wish nothing but the best for you and my cousin. I asked you to choose, Lily, and you did. i an´t fault you because your answer wasn´t the one I wanted to hear. But I meant what I said before he fight. I´m always going to love you. As the king of the Faolan, I´ll always stand byyou, even if it´s not as your king".
He wanted to conquer her. Like if she were his price and I didn´t like that a bit.
Connall:
High Prince of Faolan, cousin of Larkin. He loves Lily and although there´s no to much explanation of their past and current love, you kind of warm to him because he is very noble. He knows his cousin is clung to have her but still lets her be meanwhile she sorts her feelings for both of them. In the last book he is very understanding about her confusion of who she really loves. He tells her she can love whoever she wants and she shouldn´t care what other people think . He doesn´t feel threatend by his cousin for being the King of Faolan or by the Dark King and he treats her as his equal not him above her. He doesn´t want to fight her for control. He doesn´t want to control her.
Ronan:
He loves Lily and Bran (his brother). Apparently he hasn´t been taking good care of Bevain and has to be defeated by his soulmate (Lily). He wants Lily to admit he is her only soulmate and that she loves him. In order to get her to admit that, he plots against the people she loves. Since I started reading the books I really thought he was besides being a sociopath, true meanness. Then I noticed he was just a guy in pain. In pain of his past and his present. The loss of his parents when he was young and now the girl he can´t have. When Lily was drowining in the lake my heart mealt for him. LITERALLY. I cried for a while at the end. I didn´t want his story to end up like that. He truly loved her and had a different way to approach and Lily liked that (My ass if she didn´t). Ronan´s feeling to towards Lily and viceversa were very elaborated. That´s why it was so difficult for me to let him go.
Both wolves let her go in the past and present and the only person loyal to her was Ronan. He wouldn´t let her go. NEVER and still he was not enough.
She stood in the library room he had made for her during her time in Graindoth. Outside the window the waves crashed against the ivory white and, and she thought of how she´s been here before, secretly watching his reflection in the glass. Ronan had been dead for forty-seven hours now, and she still couldn´t shake him from her mind. In truth, she didn´t think she´d ever be able to. He was, after all, her soulmate. He´d done horrible things throughout his life, but in the end he had loved her even with his last breath. - She´s never getting over him. He was his soulmate the only one for her. She just didn´t take him by her side because she was fighting for control with him. That´s why she chose the one that didn´t want to fight her and just be obedient/amenable with her.
I feel that the author underestimate the love/hate feeling we (the readers) were going to develop towards Ronan and she forced the story to end up with one of the wolves instead of him and that´s why she used the "two soulmates" and the Brid (The Traitor) bullshit. He deserved to be forgiven. I can´t say I disagree on how the story ended because it would be a lie.. I would have mourned Connall if he were dead but I think my heart aches and will keep aching for Ronan´s loss.
I´m rating this book for what the story was and not because I disagree with the ending plot. I give this author 5 stars and hope I see more of Lily, Brid, Caer, Bran and Ruarc in future books.
