Reforged

De: Seth Haddon

Narrado por: Gary Furlong

Since time immemorial the warriors of the Paladin Order have harnessed arcane powers to protect their rulers. For Balen, who has given up his chance at love and fought his way to the top of the Paladin Order, there can be no greater honor than to serve his king. But when assassins annihilate the royal family, Balen suddenly finds himself sworn to serve the very man he abandoned.

Now with their nation threatened by enemies both within and outside the kingdom, Balen must fight hidden traitors and unnatural assassins, while also contending with the biting wit and dangerous charm of young King Zavrius. To save themselves and their nation they will have to put aside their past and reforge that trust they lost so long ago.

Contains mature themes.

©2022 Seth Haddon (P)2023 Tantor

A great book with a fantastic narrator.

I really loved this book. It has everything I want in a fantasy romance - a good magic system, an intriguing plot line, and a relationship that MAKES SENSE. I found it refreshing the two main characters gayness was never really questioned and presented as totally normal - sometimes LGBT books get really caught up in the coming out stories so I really liked that it wasn't like that.

I found the plot interesting, but it did give the feel of kind of point A to point B. I also felt like Balin needed a bit more agency in the Paladin order to really make sense - I would have loved if he had a little band of paladins to help him and back his king politically. I also loved the magic system and how it was nearly religious, loved the extra politics outside of the domestic sphere too. The romance was great, gave me some good butterflies. This book is also rather explicit, for those who are unsure.

I am excited to see what else this author has to offer! I was looking for some other works and was disappointed to see this was the only other one. I hope he has some stuff planned for us!

An absolute joy to read!

I was online looking for another title by Seth the minute I finished. Hoping there will be many more to come!

Pretty good for a debut novel

I’ll start with the not so good and end with the better. While Reforged doesn’t shine in any particular area it’s still one of the few gay fantasy novels I’ve read that felt polished and where the romantic plot didn’t smother the rest of the story. It does have some issues with repetition that show a lack of faith in the reader to remember key facts about the world and magic system. Dialogue has quite a few clichés, and filter words (he felt, he thought, etc.) abound, and kindle version has a few typos and grammatical errors -could have probably done with another pass through the editors. Protagonist is more reactive than proactive, to the point where I wish the story was from Zavrius’s POV rather than Balen’s. It also seems to start in a strange spot for the emotional beats it wants to hit: The fatherly mentor character wasn’t “on screen” long enough for the readers to grow attached to him or invested in his bond with the protagonist, we’re told the antagonist is usually levelheaded and stoic only when he’s already spiraled into cackling monologues, a supporting character who betrays Zavrius isn’t really established as trustworthy to begin with but it’s still portrayed as if it was supposed to be shocking, etc.

There were some genuine surprises though: some twists I didn’t see coming that at the very least kept my attention. The romance - once they stopped acting like stroppy teenagers - was sweet. The magic system was unique, straightforward and made me curious to find out more about it. The narration was very good, although at times I was having difficulty distinguishing between side characters when they were speaking.

Fun story, had trouble separating the povs

Fun, twisty plot with court intrigue and international drama. The reader was okay, but didn’t bother to assign each character their own voice unless they were actually speaking so it was very easy to lose track of who’s pov we were experiencing

Not worth the credit

This story had a nice ending but it took forever to get there. The narration needed to be a lot better, way to monotone. Also the story itself wasn't that good. No real HEA at the end either. Super unsatisfied 🙃