Ami's Hoard

3.5 stars

This is one of the longest stories from Love Landscape's Event that I read this year. Came to me after my friend Didi reviewed it awhile ago. Now, I totally commended on the fairy-tale / fantasy context of this story. Medieval fantasy / fairy tale doesn't always come easy for me to enjoy (I prefer something more URBAN fantasy ;p). However, I found this story as easy to follow, both the prose and the plot ...

I really liked the Court that taught all these marriage prospects was both for ladies and consorts. I think it's probably one of the things I enjoy from fairy tales like this, no bigotry or homophobia. I loved reading about how Jasen, from Kingdom of Grumhul, found his way to the dragons and the etiquette lessons, dressing lessons, all the while wearing corset and high heels (YEP!). The world was pretty fascinating -- with people being dragon-blessed (given an ability) and being dragon-called (requested a service by dragons). The dragons were majestic too! I loved them.

The characters I loved the most, however, interestingly were NOT the main characters. I loved Lady Risyda -- Jasen's fellow Court member. She could easily be a female character that I loved to read again and again (much like Christine from "Whyborne and Griffin" series). I also loved Larely, the guardian who got his heart 'bruised' after realizing that Jasen only saw him as a friend.

The main characters were actually the reason why I couldn't give this 4* yet. I thought Jasen was quite whiny and a bit selfish. I understand that he wasn't really wanting to be given the responsibility to the whole draeid and draidess -- and that he was still young and probably it contributed to this attitude of him. But the whole "I don't want to marry the King" and "I love Rilvor but not his role as a King" made me act like Lady Isalei. I questioned whether Jasen would be able to take his role as the King's consort...

It also didn't help that the romance between Jasen and Rilvor was a bit lackluster for me. I guess I needed more time of Jasen and Rilvor as a couple. I felt that Jasen and Risyda, heck even Jasen and Larely, had more screen-time. Rilvor came a bit bland to me as well. Again, I felt more towards Larely compared to Rilvor (which made me happy to hear that Larely would get his own story in the future).

But all in all, for a debut story from this author, I enjoyed it. I would look forward to another story from this realm.

PS: The cover is probably one of my favorites from this year's event!