The Moon Raven by Grace Draven 
Published by Self Published Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 269
Format: eBook
Source: Amazon
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Disaris jin Gheza's rare gift for code-breaking means she must flee a conquering army and a fanatical cult, or become their prisoner and pawn. To evade capture, she will cross perilous territories and sorcerous borders, her aim, rescue her sister from captivity and stop a goddess bent on remaking the world through destruction and bloodshed.
But she won't be facing danger alone. The battle mage known as the Moon Raven travels by her side. Once Disaris's best friend and lover, Bron is now an uneasy ally with a death bounty on his head for desertion.
Bound together by memories and a bond that they both believed broken, the two fugitives must outrun a deadly tracker, save a kingdom, and crush a savage deity - all without dying in the effort.
A tale of loyalty and longing.
I loved these characters from their first meeting as children.
As always, Grace Draven gave us some great characters in Disaris and Bron. The story is told jumping between the past and the present. Disaris has been forced by her husband to become a codebreaker for a crazy religious cult. (They aren’t even interesting enough to remember their name.) And yes, I said husband, and it isn’t Bron. Their castle is under siege by Bron’s army and after the walls fall, Bron and Disaris are reunited and we are thrown back into the past.
Disaris is a very outgoing, strong-willed girl and she takes a liking to shy Bron immediately, almost forcing him into her orbit, which he never really minds. As the story unfolds, we see how the young children grow up as constant companions and as they become adults, those feelings change into something more romantic. But as Bron starts to come into his own strong magic, he is recruited into the local army. This obviously kept Bron and Disaris separated while he trained, only receiving few passes to return home to visit.
When Bron first arrived at the town, his albino looks made him an outcast with most of the children of the village (with the exception of Disaris) and it took years and years for Bron to reach a grudging respect from the others his age, although he never really was included in the boys’ pack. When a rich lord moved into town with his pompous son, he and Bron eventually became friends. Problem is that while Bron accepted this sudden friendship, Ceybold was living by the rule “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” He was jealous of the respect Bron had in the village, especially after he was so sought out to join the army while Ceybold was not, but most important Ceybold was very jealous of Disaris’s unwavering devotion for Bron. Ceybold first tried to charm and seduce her to his side and when that does not work, he is determined to ruin their relationship. It isn’t that he wants Disaris. It is that he wants to destroy everything for Bron.
So the story bounces us between the past and the present as we learn Bron and Disaris’s back story, their building relationship and how we got to the point where Disaris is now married to Ceybold, who works for the evil cult, and why she refused to see Bron anymore. I really enjoyed watching how Disaris and Bron started out as inseparable friends that grew into young love and eventually lovers. And I couldn’t wait to unravel what happened that could have put a wedge in the strong bond between them.
I was absolutely engrossed in this world that Grace Draven created although I would complain that the ending was bum-rushed. With all the build up of this dangerous cult, the final confrontation was pretty lack-luster. Like I mentioned, the cult was unremarkable compared to everything else in the story so defeating them wasn’t really the main focus of the story. It was the necessary wedge in the relationship so we could have a reunion. It seemed like the author put all her energy into selling us this love story and once they were reunited, the “battle” was just a means to get to the The End.
Favorite Scene:
At six years old, Disaris Jin Gheza fell in love at first sight with the pale, fragile Bron Jin Hazarin. Two years older than she, thin as a broom handle and with piercing blue eyes, he’d recoiled from her initial excited greeting as if she were a large cockroach scuttling toward him.
Undeterred by the fact he hid behind his mother and flinched the closer she got, Disaris thrust out her hand and grabbed his, giving it a firm squeeze when he tried to pull away. “I’m Disa,” she said, riveted by the sight of the magnificent boy with his white hair and eyebrows. He looked like he’d swallowed the moon, and its light shone through him. She didn’t wait for him to reply. “I like your name. Do you like frogs?” She tugged on his hand, tightening her grip as he resisted and stared at her owl-eyed. “Come with me. I’ll show you a place where we can catch armloads of frogs.”
He didn’t say no but grabbed his mother’s skirt with his free hand and held on as if his very life was at stake. Disaris dug in her heels. This boy was going to spend the afternoon with her one way or the other.
His mother pried his fingers loose one by one and gave him a gentle shove that almost pitched him into Disaris’s arms. “Go on, Bron,” she said in a soothing voice. “It will be fun, and you’ll have made a friend. Just stay in the shade as much as you can.”
Bron looked more horrified than reassured, glancing back and forth between his mother and a grinning Disaris. “What if I don’t like frogs?”
He gasped and nearly tripped when Disaris yanked him forward and began dragging him down the path that led from her home to the wet weather creek at the bottom of the nearby slope. “You will. I promise,” she declared, clenching his hand as she towed him behind her.
“Be home by sundown, Disa!” Her mother’s familiar directive followed them, and Disaris waved without pausing or turning around. She was afraid if she did, Bron would break for freedom and flee for his house.
To her surprise, he didn’t try to run away. Instead, he followed her down the worn path to a gentle descent that ended at the banks of a shallow creek. Sunlight sparkled off the burbling water, and Disaris imagined she heard the faint laughter of lim-folk within the dappling shade of oak, birch, and maple trees. Maybe they too had come out to see the beautiful moon boy.
At the creek’s edge, the trunk of a fallen oak acted as a ledge where they sat and removed their shoes. Disaris pointed her toes at the shore. “It’s muddy where the best frogs hide. It’s better to be barefoot.”
Bron’s face pinched into a disapproving expression. “Is it slimy?”
“Oh yes!” Disaris clapped her hands, eager to sink her feet into the squishy sludge and catch her first frog of the day. “Very slimy.” She eyed him, suddenly doubting just how lovely her new friend actually was. “You don’t like mud?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. This is my first time hunting for frogs.”
She grabbed his hand again and yanked him from his seat on the tree trunk. “You’ll love it,” she declared and led him to the strip of muddy bank where treasure awaited them.
They spent the remainder of the day catching and releasing panicked frogs, outraged crayfish, and the occasional confused dragonflies whose pearlescent bodies and transparent wings shimmered in the sun. A makeshift lunch of wild plums and bitter dandelion greens subdued their growling bellies, and they washed their hands in the creek only to dirty them again as they gathered empty snail shells and pink stones polished smooth by water onto a flat rock that jutted out from the bank.
As the sun sank in the west, it hurled a last volley of golden javelins across the creek. Disaris raised her face to the light, closing her eyes against the fading brightness. She opened them once more and spotted Bron nearby, watching her as he stood in the lengthening shadow cast by the palisade of trees around him.
“Come sit by me, Bron,” she called, gesturing to him.
He shook his head. “I can’t. The sun makes me turn red and gives me blisters if I’m in it too long.”
She shrugged and rose from her crouch. “Then I’ll come stand by you.” She skipped toward him, the wet hem of her frock dragging twigs along with it so she made a crackling noise as she approached. He didn’t pull away when she reached for his hand and gave him a wide grin. “See? You don’t have to stand alone.”
I absolutely adored that childhood scene you quoted! Disaris dragging a reluctant Bron to catch frogs perfectly captures her force-of-nature personality -“You look like you swallowed the moon” is such a memorable first meeting.I’m also curious about your thoughts on Ceybold – does his sabotage feel like genuine emotional manipulation rooted in his jealousy of Bron’s standing in the village, or did he come across as too cartoonishly evil?
Hi, Alex. Ceybold was definitely too one-dimensional for a good villain. He wasn’t evil enough. He was in a position to cause real harm, especially when Disaris was unprotected but he mostly left her alone. He didn’t add much to the story and could have been dropped from the story all together and Disaris could have just been captured and forced into the service of religious leader.
This one sounds good! I will put this book on my TBR list. THanks