BOOK REVIEW: Becoming Valkyrie by Brandy Cunningham

BECOMING VALKYRIE
by Brandy Cunningham


I wanted to spread the love for this darkly enchanting novel. The darkness compels you, the light beseeches you, and your internal organs ache to avoid clicking the button... but then you see the word FREE on KU and eagerly press on. You're Welcome.

Blurb:
For Valkyrie Walker, Halloween had never been an ordinary day. It was her birthday and a day that held great importance in her life. The year she turned eighteen, she would realize just how important that day truly was, both to her past, and her future. 



When a handful of strangers turn up at her town’s annual Halloween festival, Valkyrie is struck with a feeling of foreboding. The appearance of these men will bring forth destruction and death for Valkyrie and the people she loves. 

But Valkyrie is not an ordinary girl. 

Plummeted into a world of supernatural beings, it turns out that buried within her subconscious mind is the true Valkyrie Walker, the one who died four hundred years ago. As Valkyrie’s human soul slowly converges with her other self, she finds her body and her appetite changing. Caught in a love triangle with two of the most alluring and sexy men she has ever encountered does little to quiet the darkness growing inside of her. With an age-old prophecy about darkness descending on earth, 

Valkyrie must choose. Either she fights to save earth and humans, or she succumbs to the dark desires within her. 

Can she keep the fires of her soul contained long enough to pick a side, and a man, or will she choose darkness and let them all burn?

Link to Amazon Becoming Valkyrie: Pyralis Book One (Volume 1)

The book is available for Free through the Kindle Unlimited (which is where I read it from), and if you're into getting physical (wiggles brows) which I'm sure you are, it's set at a reasonable $12.99 price through Createspace on Amazon. This, I've found has been a really the lowest cost for physical copies of its size through print on demand, unless you have a huge platform backing a huge print run to reduce the costs. Print on Demand has come such a long ways from when it first started, making things more affordable for the reader and the author.

Now on to the review!

Okay, it took me around a week to read the book. The first 33% of the book was not my style and took some getting into for me, the writing was good, but the story set up was a bit eh for me. But then the gates of hell opened and gobbled me up into mush the rest of the book. Finally, I breathed out, thinking YUUUSH the real story has come hither. I attached myself to my favorite character (what not the main character?) No, fools of the mortal realms, I liked the darkly enchanting Aeron. His cold, collected, charming, and in the heat of the moment an animal, and a gangster that would die for the one he loves. This ladies is everything dark we love about our fake men, and everything romantic and sweet we love about them too, but he has a mysterious untold story about his past... and he's been burned before, so his willingness to rekindle the fires is shall we stay stand-offish. There's always something that gets in the way of the love.

I choose a side in this triangle early on, as soon as I met him. Aeron I choose you to be Valkyrie's lover! Read the story to see if you agree with me, of course there is some other attractive vampire dude in there too, but I stick by my vote.

Now things to know about the story: Yes, there is nudity. Yes, there is death, and battle. Vampire's tearing heads off, and humans reduced to ashes. There is also plenty of sexual tension for all you book porn lovers out there. Is there actual sex in book one, no, only reference to having had sex in a previous life. But I do suspect something juicy in book two... or maybe those are just my romantic hopes and dreams manifested into universe.

I think the writing of this story really came together as it progressed. I found myself liking it more the more I read... that is after the first 33% of the book. Which, leads me back to one of my previous rants that I had in one of my Editor's Feedbacks about how sometimes it takes an author time to get to know the characters better and the more they write about them the better the story gets. Sometimes, all it takes is another edit round of the beginning on developing the book more, but also, authors need to learn to let go so they can continue to write and give us the rest of the story. I have a feeling that book two will be even better than book one, because the setup is over and the author knows the universe better.

I look forward to reading more about my favorite character Aeron and delving into the battles of all the casts (which is what all of the factions of supernaturals are called in this story)

If you like vampires, witches, angels, supernatural creatures, and a building romantic tension between powerful, beautiful, and dangerous monsters then Becoming Valkyrie could fulfill your dark fantasies.

To the Author... finish the next book! (Supposedly planning to be released in October 2018)

Quote from the book: "I would never truly be alone. I carried with me the memories of the people I had lost. They crouched upon my shoulders, whispering tender comforting words in my weakest moments and appraisal when I overcame my fear."

Follow the Author here:
Twitter: @BLC_Author
Website: blcauthor.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Becoming Valkyrie

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