Slowly but surely, moving towards having the entire River Of Time series reviewed. You can find the review's for...
But today, we are going over the two novella's, Bourne & Tributary. These books pick up where Torrent left off, where the ladies are waiting for Luca, Marcello & Rodolfo to come back from the battle we saw begin at the end of Torrent.
Today I'll be doing the breakdown separately (First Bourne, then following with Tributary), but in the same blog post, since I got the two novella's combined in one book. I'm not certain if you can get them bound separately as novella's instead of combined...but anywho, let's get started, shall we?
|| BOURNE ||
PLOT:
Steady & fast paced throughout. As this is a novella (135 pages), it's shorter and the plot a bit more mini in scale, but no less riveting. It follows our band of Forelli/Greco/Betarrini peeps as the Fiorentini launch an attack against the secret brotherhood with the triangle tattoos. Essentially, they're trying to discover who they are, so they can decimate them, their land, and their families.
VIOLENCE:
Battle type stuff. People getting stabbed, pierced with arrows. At one point we come across a Forelli knight who was strung up in a tree, eyes bulging, his tongue sticking out *cue the ew*
While the assassins go about trying to discover the brotherhood and murder them all, a castello is burned, some of its occupants inside. The rest of the castello (women, children and soldiers) were cut down in the courtyard. The assassins left triangular cuts on their ankles, and for some of their victims, possibly on their necks? I'm not entirely certain.
People are beaten in combat and in attempting to extract information, but nothing floats toward torture-land.
SEXUAL CONTENT:
Soldiers capture Lia and threaten to do some nasty business if she doesn't give them the information they want. One soldier begins moving his hands up her leg, but that's as far as he goes.
Between characters there are kisses- some short, some longer, more passionate.
When Marcello is ill with a fever, Gabi (they are married) climbs into bed with him with little on (a shift or thin nightgown or something like that), pressing her thigh against his and wrapping her arms around his chest- or just on top of. When he wakes, he says, "Wait until I tell the men how you healed me...climbing into bed with none but that on..."
Later on, Marcello pulls Gabi into their room and they share a passionate kiss.
"'Shouldn't you return to bed, m'lord?'
'Undoubtedly,' he said, moving to kiss my lips, parting them with his own. He wrapped his arm around my back and puled me close, grunting in pain but refusing to release me. I settled in, kissing him back with equal passion."
Later on... "But my husband decided my course of action for me. He opened the door a crack. Finding me alone, he took my hand and pulled me through, back inside. Then he latched and locked the door, lifted my hands to the wall above me, and began to kiss me like he never, ever intended to let me go again." pp. 60-61
Again, I've not covered ALL the sexual content in this book- there is bound to be stuff I haven't caught in this review- but that wasn't really my intention in the first place. I just include the bulk of the information, to give you a feel of what is present. Cool peas :-P
CONCLUSION:
The only sad thing about this book is that it was so dang short! I was ramping up for the crazy stuff, really enjoying it, and then- boom! It was finished and I was into Tributary. But even in its short form it was delightful. Fast paced.
These two books shift their focus more to Lia & Luca, and Rodolfo. Except for a few romantic scenes between Marcello and Gabi, it doesn't focus on them as much. Which was okay. They weren't omitted from the books, but the focus shifted a lot to Lia & Luca's romance, and I really enjoyed their relationship and the new-ness of being able to get to know them as an almost couple.
|| TRIBUTARY ||
PLOT:
Tributary takes off, I think it's a year after Bourne ends. This one focuses again, on Lia & Luca's budding romance, and also heavily focuses on Rodolfo and a young woman named Alessandra. It was faced paced and I enjoyed reading it- I wish there was a whole book dedicated to Rodolfo Greco and his story. But alas...
VIOLENCE:
Battle type stuff. Arrows shot into people, taking people out with swords. That kinda stuff. Alessandra gets beaten up by a Fiorentini Lord, kicked, slapped and punched.
SEXUAL CONTENT:
While in captivity, Alessandra is nearly raped. The head dude leaves her with one of his knights, instructing him to rape her. The knight grabs her, she starts screaming and crying, but he tells her he is her friend and he intends to help her escape. He plays up the facade, yelling for her to come to him, to give in and to stop complaining, then instructs her to scream and shakes her. She does, making it sound as though he's raped her, to anyone listening. He then killed the knight on watch and stripped him of his clothes. When he told her to take off her dress, she thought he was going to take advantage of her, but he turned his back and tossed her the guard's clothes to change into.
Rodolfo and Alessandra share a kiss at the end of the book. Nothing really steamy, but it wasn't a quick peck on the cheek either.
CONCLUSION:
Finishing Tributary left me feeling like I'd just finished an appetizer, and was ready for the main course. Unfortunately, the book had finished, and I was like...dude, now I need to read Deluge- which I told myself I'd never do again. But alas...I'm gonna go and do it again. Whoops. #cantstopwontstop
Anywho, I really enjoyed these books. They were shorter and didn't take as long to work out or resolve, but I enjoyed them just as much.
As I said in the conclusion above, I really enjoyed getting to watch Lia & Luca fall in love, and also follow Rodolfo's story a bit closer. That was pretty much awesome.
5 stars and I'd recommend these two books for 16+...just depending on how each person can handle the gory, massacre-type violence and the lightly steamy kissing scene with Marcello & Gabi.
Have you read Bourne & Tribuary? What were your thoughts?
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