ARC Review: Reign (Kindred: The Fated #3)

Reign (Kindred: The Fated #3)

Donna Grant

Blurb:

Magic holds both beauty and danger…

As Lady of the Varroki, Malene was powerful and revered. But after a battle, she awakens in Norway as Dagny, a witch with no memories of her past. Her identity fragmented, Dagny finds herself entangled in a life far removed from the path she once trod and seduced by the lure of power. Until that need shifts to passion for the one who has imprisoned her, hoping to make her remember.

As a warrior and the Lady’s right hand, Armir will not stop searching for Malene. When he does, she’s not the woman he remembers. Driven by an undying love that transcends the boundaries of time and space, Armir risks everything for her. But enemies lurk in the shadows, waiting to strike. Will he and Malene overcome their pasts to find a future together?

Themes:  Magick, Paranormal

Rating: 4.5 stars

Heat Rating: 

Review:

The grand finale has finally arrived in our hot little hands, and boy was it worth the long wait.  For those of us who have shared this long journey with the magical Donna Grant and her witches, the ending of the battles for the Kindred and their allies seemed like it would be bittersweet, but we needed to experience it.  When Malene and Armir first began to fall in love, we feared that their future would be a dark one, knowing they had obstacles in their way that might just be insurmountable, however, we never gave up hope for them.  Donna’s imagination and heart continue to surprise me and keep me on my toes as she led us through this last bit of darkness and back into the light of love and happiness for the last couple to find their hearts together. We have been given our long happily ever after for these Kindred and know that the war has finally come to an end, but I continue to hope that Donna might give us a spinoff in the future and let us back into her world for more greatness.

Armir finally has the love of his life back in his arms, after being told she was dead, despite not believing it himself, but she is not the same and doesn’t have any memory of who she was before.  She is living as a conquering witch by the name of Dagny, determined to conquer and take over, but when Armir kidnaps her from her latest battle she finds herself facing her greatest challenge ever. Now Armir and Dagny are trapped together, without their magic, until she regains her memories, because if she is set free as the witch Dagny, unable to tap into the conscience of Malene in her heart, the world could just fall into darkness. However, the more time they spend together the more Dagny feels for the sexy Varroki warrior and the deeper their emotions run.  When an enemy from the past comes to take Armir, Dagny has to dig deep to defeat not only their enemy but the blocks in her own mind to protect the man she has quickly fallen for, or they could both die.

Armir and Dagny/Malene were both interesting characters because we saw sides of these characters that we haven’t been able to see in previous novels. Armir has always been so calm, collected, and buttoned-up in previous novels because he had to project this demeanor as a leader.  But now we see him as the broken man who has lost—and now found—the love of his life and he is dealing with all the emotional upheaval of seeing the changes in Malene as she lives as Dagny.  He is still strong, determined, brave, and a singular fighter, but his love and devotion to her make you want to cry as he falls apart. Once he finally accepts that Malene might be forever gone, leaving behind only Dagny, and he allows himself to embrace her for what he needs, we see a new side of the selfless warrior and instead just see him take something for himself for once. Malene/Dagny was such a well-written character because she was truly two different characters as she was lost and then found.  Malene was once such a sweet, loving, and self-conscious character, but living as Dagny she never doubted herself and her decisions, even if we cringed as some of them.  She lived her life to the fullest, doing what she thought was best and forging ahead no matter what others thought.  She was strong, smart, fearless, and bold as she moved forward with her plans for world domination, but when she does finally understand that perhaps that might be a happy medium she carries those traits with her.  Once she regains her true self, Malene can incorporate Dagny’s strengths into her true personality to be the full Lady of the Varroki she was always meant to be, proving that he time as Dagny was not truly wasted. 

Donna Grant teaches us a valuable lesson that sometimes the parts of our personality that others find the least desirable, can in the long run be the most important for us to learn from.  When we all believed that Malene was gone, that she had given her life for the cause to keep the Coven from killing innocents for their cause, despite Armir’s conviction she lived, we were heartbroken. Learning she had turned to the dark side and was herself now trying to conquer others and force them to her will was even harder to deal with, but having to watch Armir come to accept the loss of his love a second time was almost too much.  Armir is such a stalwart and loving warrior, one who never seems to give up on those he loves or the causes he believes in, that seeing him defeated was demoralizing.  When he finally moved on and learned to live in the moment, we accepted along with him that maybe his future was on a different but no less noble and loving path with a new partner.  Malene’s path, even her time as Dagny, was complicated and led through some interesting changes for the powerful Lady of the Varroki, but in the end she found her strength and her power.  Her ability to become the leader and lover needed to effect change for her people and the man she loved, while finding herself in the end showed her inner core of goodness and strength could be buried but never was lost.  I loved the passion between these two from the very beginning of their love story in previous novels, through their time trapped together and into the future as they live their HEA.  I truly do hope that Grant gives us another series in the world of the Kindred, but if she doesn’t I can honestly say that Reign is the perfect ending to a series that began with skepticism for a world of witches and wonder and became one of my favorite of her series.  Grant’s magic with the keyboard never fails and I am forever spellbound.

*eARC provided by the author for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review.  No compensation was provided.