"The Potato Chip of Fantasy Romance"

Tranorva, High Matriarch of the Bear Clan, is on a journey to restore the soul to her lover Elandine's dead-seeming body. With her travel others of the Bear Clan, among them Balthain, a mercenary raised in the sewers and filth of Elahandara, and Dahlai, a Fey child. Their destination is Tir na nOg, the land of the Faerie (Tuatha de Danann) and the powerful beings that dwell there. Their journey is just the beginning, though, for the Bear Clan is destined for greater things than a mere journey to an island thought to be only legend.

THE MERCENARY'S PRIZE is not your everyday romance story, though it is very romantic. Though there is a lot of explicit sex and the relationships between the characters are romantic in nature, this book is firmly entrenched in its own fantasy world. The many characters that people the book are more common in fantasy novels than romance novels, but that doesn't stop Ms. Morgen from spiderwebbing them all together in romantic entanglements and situations. Readers who have a problem with flashbacks may want to know in advance that there is a substantial amount of italicized text in this novel, all of it telling tales that you just *know* are fill-in from the previous quartet.

The ending is satisfying, though at the same time it leaves you hungry for the next installment. This reviewer's conclusion: The Northlands books are like the famous potato chips -- you can't read just one.

This is the first book in the Song of the Bear series. It introduces many ideas and plot-threads, all interwoven, and features an ending that leaves the reader eager to find out what's next. Though some of the characters and plotlines are clearly continued from Ms. Morgen's earlier quartet, The Way of the Wolf, new readers to her Northlands series will not be hopelessly lost.

Sensuality Level: Very, very steamy. Many of the sexual encounters happen in flashbacks or dreams. Encounters are generally pretty explicit.

Reviewed by Ann Leveille
Courtesy Sensual Romance
Posted October 31, 2002

Sexual Content: Hard R/borderline NC-17

Summary

All Tranorva had to do was cart a dead man half way around the globe to an island no one knew how to find, persuade the King of Faerie to grant her an audience, restore Élandine's spirit to his body, and waive the prohibition against Fey and Mortal marriages.

Right. Simple enough until restoring her family made Tranorva heir to a dead house and a captive people. Now the King of Faerie has set her an even greater challenge. The price of Élandine's freedom is the price of her own, and she must rely on the aide of a Rogue and a thief to clear Élandine's name and bring her people home. Can she trust Balthain to find the truths hidden deep in the heart of Élahandara or does the Mercenary have an agenda of his own?

Everyone has a price...