Marianna

I clicked and was sucked right into the story of Seyonne, an Ezzarian slave now for 17 years, and Alexander,  a Derzhi prince who buys him.

I spent the rest of the day and half the night re-reading this book.

I do not want to go into the plot of this book for I read this book blind the first time. I didn't look at review or at the description and I think it reads best that way.

Seyonne has resigned to his fate and thinks little of his past or the man he used be but as his new master disrupts his life he starts to think on these things and that is how we learn about him. 

This is his first impression of the prince:

"Crown Prince Aleksander, Palatine of Azhakstan and Suzain,
Priest of Athos, Overlord of Basran, Thryce, and Manganar, heir to
the Lion Throne of the Derzhi Empire, was perhaps the rudest,
most callow, ungenerous, and arrogant youth ever to ride the
deserts of Azhakstan. From the instant of our first meeting I judged
him so, though it could be said that I was prejudiced. When one is
standing naked on a slave-auction block in a wind cold enough to
freeze a demon’s backside, one is unlikely to have a fair impression
of anyone."

It all starts there and moves at a breakneck spreed forward. The characters are alive and three dimensional.  No one is perfect and even the evil is seen to be necessary for the balance of the world.

This book doesn't end on a cliffhanger but at the end Seyonne's battles are not over. They are just moved to a different battleground.

I will not read the next book in this series right now.

I'll save it for a day when I once again need some great writing to bring me out of a funk.