Work takes him to the remote seaside villa of an old friend, where, among an odd assortment of guests, he meets the eunuch sword-dancer Varazda. Enigmatic and beautiful but distinctly prickly, Varazda is the antithesis of the straightforward and serious Damiskos. Yet as they keep getting in each other’s way at the villa, their mutual dislike is complicated by a spark of undeniable attraction.
Then the villa’s guests begin to reveal their true characters and motives—no one here is what they seem—and Damiskos finds himself at the centre of a bizarre web of espionage, theft, and assassination. Varazda may need Damiskos’s help, but not as much as Damiskos, finally awakening to a new sense of life and purpose, needs Varazda.
Sword Dance is the first book in the Sword Dance trilogy, an m/m romance set in an imaginary ancient world, with murderous philosophy students, sex acts named after fruit, and love blossoming in the midst of mayhem.
Buy link: Amazon
Cat gives this 4 meows with a 2 purr heat index...
I’m not going to summarize too much as I’m afraid it might give spoilers so read the blurb it tells a lot.
This is a high fantasy which I normally don’t read. It’s not because I don’t like them it’s the big, unpronounceable names, and cities and long words that pull you out of the story no matter how gripping it is. Now having said that, once I got past the big names and even made my own short versions to help me get through, I was snagged.
The writing is well done and I was very impressed by the characters, plots, subplots and descriptiveness. There were scenes like the Sword Dance, the sparring between Pharastes and Damiskos that we’re nearly entrancing. I appreciated the slow burn and the romance between Verazda and Damiskos was smoking hot.
I’m very happy I read, well... devoured, this book.
A.J. Demas writes about love and imaginary politics in a fictional ancient Mediterranean world. She has been making up stories since she was a little girl but only recently discovered the romance genre. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and cute daughter.
For free short stories and snippets set in the world of A.J.'s novels, sign up for the Fragments Club newsletter: ajdemas.com/list/
Twitter: @ajdemaswriter
Website: ajdemas.com
Preorder book 2, Saffron Alley, today from Amazon
(Releasing February 16th)
Things aren’t going according to plan.
Varazda’s family members suspect Damiskos’s motives. Varazda grapples with his own desires. Add in a horrible goose, a potentially lethal sculpture, and yet another assassination plot, and any man other than Dami would be boarding a ship straight back to Pheme.
It’s going to take all of Damiskos’s patience, and all of Varazda’s strength, to make this new relationship work. After all that, solving one more murder shouldn’t be too hard.
Saffron Alley is the second book in the Sword Dance trilogy, the continuation of Dami and Varazda’s story from Sword Dance. It crosses over with One Night in Boukos, but you don’t have to have read that book to enjoy this one.
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