The Moonfire Bride by Sylvia Mercedes Review

This review and the one that will soon follow are the last two books I had been meaning to write in honor of my late grandfather. Both books in this duology The Moonfire Bride and the Sunfire King are based off the two Greek myths Hades and Persephone and Cupid and Psyche. Cupid and Psyche is what could be considered the precursor to East of the Sun and West of the Moon and so I included them in my reading project to read as many of these tales as I could. In the end I listened to five of them all on audiobook. Truth be told though I had previously read these books before at some point in my life with the exception of these two. I had never heard of its author Sylvia Mercedes until recently and I find that I am now very eager to read more of her work. 

The Moonfire Bride is the story of Valera a young woman who's life revolves around protecting her little sister Brielle not only from the cruelties of the world (their abusive father included) but from the Fae too. Valera fears that one day the Fae will take her sister and tries to discourage her from going into the Whispering Wood where Brielle loves to visit. One evening as Valera is drifting off to sleep, she hears a disembodied male voice asking for her name. Without thinking she tells him only to learn the next day that by giving him her name she is now halfway married. A mysterious Fae has taken an interest in her and will claim her as his bride that night. With the help of Mother Ulla, a ward witch she creates a magical barrier to prevent anyone from entering her house. However, when Brielle doesn't come home that night Valera ends up leaving the protective zone fearing the Fae will hurt her. She is then taken away to a palace where she meets her bridegroom Erolas. Erolas is a Fae lord who tells Valera that he needs a wife for reasons he cannot explain. If Valera stays with him as his bride for a year without seeing his face, he will return her to her family. Seeing her husband only at night with him being nothing more than a cloaked shadow in the day Valera reluctantly adjusts to her new life. As time goes on, she finds herself falling in love with the mysterious Erolas but worry for her sister keeps her unsettled. Can she wait the year out and trust Erolas will keep his word? Or will her actions to get home sooner than promised lead to a disaster that she never could have imagined?

Valera is a great protagonist. She worries constantly about her sister who she wants to protect from their physically abusive father to the point where she takes punches meant for others. When she is taken to Erola's palace, for the longest time she can only think of preventing Brielle from coming after her. However, her attempts to stop her sister only spur Brielle to continue her search causing even more problems for the couple. Valera also has a talent for sewing which leads her to make clothes for the servants. Truth be told this gets mixed results for the Fae don't always enjoy wearing clothing but it was still a nice gesture on her part. But the scenes I enjoyed her the most in are the ones with Erolas. They are such a great couple. Valera at first refuses to trust him. It's not just because of her circumstances for coming there but because he can not answer most of her questions. The fact that the Fae are known to be untrustworthy doesn't help matters further. For a while she even refuses to eat anything because of the stories she had heard. However, despite her understandable worries Erolas's continued kindness towards her from sending a message to Brielle to letting her use the last of his water from the Starglass Mirror (something he had paid a great price to obtain) slowly earns her trust and allows her to fall in love with him.

Erolas was probably my favorite character in this duology. He tells Valera at one point that he was surprised when the Starglass Mirror showed him his bride was a human and yet that did not disappointed him. It was nice to see that he doesn't look down upon her for that fact. He loves and respects her and would do anything to make her happy. Although he does have limits to what he can give her (mainly he doesn't really have the means to help contact Brielle) but he tries nonetheless and his actions were so touching that I couldn't wait for the second book to see him and Valera get their happy ending.

One slight complaint I have is that there are not a lot of important secondary characters. The palace servants consist of Ellie a Fae women and a group of goblins none of whom speak Valera's language except in one scene in the beginning. I could not understand the reason behind this and found it annoying that the book never gives an explanation. The other main side character is Brielle who you only really see in the beginning and end of the story. While Brielle's determination to find her sister is admirable I felt like I didn't know enough about her to become invested in her. There's no denying her anger towards her awful father is understandable as well as her drive to save her sister. But other than that there wasn't enough information to work with for me to truly connect with her. Thankfully she has a book of her own called Of Wolves and Wardens that will probably fix this issue.

Overall this is an very enjoyable retelling. The ending will leave you on the edge of your seat and eager to read the sequel the Sunfire King. If you enjoy Greek mythology and the Fae you will love this book. Without a doubt this is a five out of five star rating. Until next time E.V.A.