Keeping Paige: Divinity Warriors #3 by Michelle M. Pillow

AudioBook Review:

Quickly becoming a favorite of mine, the Divinity Warriors series delivers another winning installment in book 3: Keeping Paige.  While we have previously met Paige and Aidan in the earlier books, this also works as a standalone story: what is important is that Paige’s story starts before the women are in the cell awaiting the breeding ceremony at Battlewar Castle.

Aidan is a highlight in this story: he has a wonderfully soft and gooey center as evidenced by allowing his best friend’s daughter to braid, knot and otherwise ‘pretty up’ his hair, finding true joy and comfort in the little girl’s adoration.  He is wishing to follow in his friend’s path: married to a woman who came through the faerie ring and now with one child and another on the way.  Not at all interested in the summons and King’s demand that he attend the breeding ceremony at Battlewar, he expects it to again leave him mateless.

Paige is a Forrester, a dimension that brings thoughts of Snow White’s cottage in the woods with the seven dwarves.  Paige is blessed, or cursed, with foresight: making her an outcast in her own land.  When she is captured by the Faerians to be sacrificed for their beliefs, and left, drugged in the faerie ring.  Here she believes that Aidan is a Fairy come to rescue her: the drugs make her insatiable and her first experience is one that she can’t wholly remember.

Together there is an interesting push and pull between them.  Although Paige is uncomfortable with all of the changes and doesn’t always understand them, she sees him as her only salvation.  Aidan is afraid that his claiming of Paige in the way he did angered his gods and has set him back on the path to being alone forever.   While it is apparent to everyone that the two are meant for one another, the path to true love is never without pitfalls.

Rebecca Cook manages again to imbue each character with their own particular flavor and patois as their words are delivered.  This adds a depth and impact to the emotional components, and her pacing variations manage to move the story forward smoothly and without distractions.  While there are dimensional jumps, the lands that are explored here are more medieval in feel, lacking in the technology more apparent in the first two books.   I really am enjoying this series of stories, if you want some fantasy with true alpha males, clever females and plenty of steamy moments to make you squirm: this is the series!

Stars:  Overall  5  Narration  5  Story  5