Dark Lord of Kismera

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rarely have I found such a nicely balanced novel that grabs my attention from page one. I wasn’t expecting this novel to be as amazing as it was nor can I find words to adequately describe it. It fits into so many genres with ease. It is listed as romance and fantasy, but it has a heavy dose of action as well. You would think that this would subtract from characters and story, but the novel is well written. The world is developed and as someone who enjoys fantasy, I loved the author’s interpreted world, creatures, and mythology. The characters are also multidimensional and dynamic.

While I am a huge fan of fantasy, the romance is what really completed this novel for me. The author really knew what she was doing. Bottom line, if you are looking for a well-rounded fantasy romance with enjoyable characters and a fantastical world, this is definitely a novel for you.

a friend loaned me this book and it was phenomenal. a complete book, character development, plotline the works. I loved it.

What a brilliant story. Pulled me in from the start and held me right to the end. Can't wait to read the second book.

DARK LORD OF KISMERA is an Amazing! The characters and world building is very well-done, and it balances out the story nicely. I loved the Dragons in the story. They balance out the story beautifully. This book shows that love has no boundaries. Drace is a medieval performer in Las Vegas, and is called the Dark Lord. He is from a different plane than Ki a shape-shifter who turns into a lioness. Now they brought Drace to their plane to help with a threat that will be coming from the South, and he is to help to eliminate the threat. He falls in love with Ki and he thinks everything is going their way. Until he is hurt very badly and the only way to save him is send him back to his plane. Once there he cannot go back. He will grieve, thinking Ki forever lost to him. He finds someone to help him find a way back. This story is awesome!! It shows that love knows no bounds when you need to find the one you love. There is a lot of action, magic, and folklore in the story. I recommend this book to everyone. TAMARA H. HARTL is an author to watch out for. She is going to go far. I give DARK LORD OF KISMERA 5/5 STARS. Don't miss out on this great read. Get it today! You will not be disappointed.

The DARK LORD OF KISMERA by Tamara H. Hartl is an unusual, imaginative, and quite original story. When Drace is magically transported into a medieval world full of fantastical creatures, he is forced to survive by his wits and his brawn. With fantasy, romance, and some great action; there is something here for everyone. Very good fantasy read, recommended.

It was incredibly detailed, very sexy and magical. The relationship between Ki and Drace was seriously so touching and the land of Kismera sounds beautiful. The thing I honestly hesitated about was the Maggie/Drace brief relationship. It actually made me not like Drace. It felt so betraying to me. I guess it just goes to show you how invested I was in this book to feel real emotions for these characters. Other than that I cannot wait to read about Cerise and Lexin

I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with this. I’d like it, then I’d love it, then I’d get bored of it. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think part of this comes from the fact that I really enjoyed the general plot, but there were some “flaws” in the writing. However, I don’t know how much I can fault the writing style because there’s nothing too severely wrong with it, it’s just not my personal preference. Plus, I don’t know how much of it comes down to my having received an ARC/early copy of it (I think/hope? There’s an awful lot of typos in there...) Besides, for all the “flaws” there were several lines in there that made me stop and just stare in awe they were so beautifully written or “deep.”
One thing that did bother me with regards to the writing, however, was the amount of repetition of certain phrasings and such. This may still generally boil down to not being my personal preference, but I really wished there was a bit more variety in things as I found the majority of the times I grew bored were full of such repetitions. There’s even a scene quite late in there that I swear I’d read before, word for word. I had to stop and make sure I hadn’t accidentally flipped back to an earlier part or something (all too easily done on my Kindle).
I enjoyed the characters quite a bit. There were times they felt a little bit too perfect, but it didn’t really bother me too much as they did show weaknesses as well. My only real complaint is that Drace just seems to adjust to his new surroundings a bit too well. I suppose that falls under the “too perfect” category, but it was definitely something that bugged me more than the rest. Speaking of characters, though (and I suppose this also falls under writing style), I definitely would’ve preferred to follow one character the whole time, or follow a few in more regular rotations, rather than jumping from head to head at random intervals. I mean, it’s all useful information given, but sometimes I had to pause and figure out who I was following.
The pacing was... ok. The first big bit of action felt pretty fast to me, especially considering all the build up to it. Almost a blink and you miss it sort of thing. Actually, even trying to think back on it now, I don’t remember too much of it... This isn’t necessarily a complaint as I’m not usually big on crazy action sequences, but I felt there should’ve maybe been just a bit more to it to better balance things out and give a slightly better payoff for the buildup.
The sex scenes caught me a bit off guard. Especially the first one. It seems the characters went from not really liking each other to hopping into bed without much of a middle ground. And then... the scenes didn’t really stop. I’m not opposed to sex scenes, but I feel like there should’ve been a bit more warning on this one (maybe there was in other reviews and I just didn’t see them...) Plus, I feel like this could’ve done with less sexual content and still functioned just as well.
All of THAT said, however, I did enjoy this overall, and look forward to reading the next one to see what adventures the characters get to go on next!

Brilliant tale with very believable characters which draw you right into the story