King Kelson's Bride
by: Katherine Kurtz
Review by Ciara Grey
 

In this installment, I will be taking a look at Katherine Kurtz's King Kelson's Bride. Ms. Kurtz has had a major influence on my writing. She creates characters that endear themselves to the reader and then she kills them off. Yet I always come back for more. I still grieve for the loss of my favorite character, Rhys. *Sniff*

I reluctantly picked up this book. It has been several years since she has dealt with these characters. I don't like to have to wait for the next book in the series to be released. What I found in this novel was much more distressing than waiting for another book.

This is a good example for characterization. As I mentioned before Ms. Kurtz creates wonderfully full and vibrant characters. I opened to the first page expecting to see my old favorites and some new characters to love and hate. I anticipated a well paced plot complete with sudden left turns, traitors left and right.

I did not find this.

My favorite characters seemed to be shadows of their former selves. King Kelson was weepy and pining for a woman he could never have in every other chapter. The quest for another bride to be his queen ensued. A weak assassination attempt left me wondering if things would pick up.

At the end he suddenly gets over his forbidden love and decides that his new bride isn't so bad after all. No real heavy choices were put in his path. No kingly dilemmas.

Duke Alaric Morgan had little in the way any serious part in the plot. He just sort of was hanging around because his character goes with Kelson's. He has been the King's Champion in the past novels and played crucial parts in the action. He had no personal conflicts of his own in this tale.

Bishop Duncan was non-existent. He is Morgan's kinsman and long time friend. Apparently his problems of guilt over being a priest while secretly being a Deryni are resolved since he was promoted to bishop in the church and Deryniness is no longer fatal.

The new characters from Torenth had potential to really punch up the plot but they ended up being very ordinary people. The Torenthi King Liam begins as a fourteen year boy coming of age and in a few short weeks he is a mature adult. There are no explanations as to what he went through to change so much in a short time.

Kurtz is known for her treatment of magic. The magic in this novel wasn't even close to being a main element in this story. Missing trademarks and weak conflicts hurt the story. Has Ms. Kurtz grown tired of these characters? Or was she pressured to write something? If I didn't know these characters I wouldn't remember them.

I give this book a rating of * * * 1/2


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Rating Scale:
* * * * * = Un-put-downable, excellent reading!
* * * * = Good value, interesting reading.
* * * = Had potential, but could have been better.
* * = Slow, difficult to read, could have been improved.
* = Imminently forgettable.