Recommended for 18+
Kristen Ashley, known to many readers as the queen of Alpha male novels, has a fantasy series called Fantastical where magic, adventure, and the fairy tales worlds come alive. Having read and loved many Kristen Ashley novels over the years, starting with her Rock Chick series, I must admit, I was tentative about this series. I put it off until I had devoured most of her straight forward romance adventure novels. Part of it was I had high expectations due to previous works, that I feared she wouldn't hold up when switching genres in this way. I should have had more faith in you Ms. Ashley. Once again, I fell into a all night book-a-thon, continuing into the following day, unable to put the book down until finished type state. I was in total story junkie mode with this one.
The story begins with a young adventure seeking junkie named Seofin, Finnie for short, who contacts a witch known as Valentine, who for a large sum of money, promises her the ultimate adventure. A trip to an alternate universe, one parallel to ours, one where our twin exists, though different from ourselves, in a world very different from our own. Having made contact with the other Seofin, the Finnie of this world and of the other agree to trade places for one year. Our Finnie is driven by adventure, but more so out of the desire to see her parents, who in this world have since perished, but live on in the parallel universe.
The switch is made, and shortly thereafter, our Finnie finds herself in a magical winter wonderland as a real live princess. What the original Seofin forgot to mention however, is that she was set to marry the Drakkar in mere moments. He is an immensely large man with a surly disposition and apparent dislike for Finnie, which also the former Seofin forgot to mention. After getting hitched and ditched by her new husband in a remote part of this frozen foreign land, Finnie gets exactly what she was looking for, an adventure. Finnie, being strong willed and determined makes the best of what she was given, and finds herself enjoying this strange yet wonderful world. As time passes, she also gets more than she expected in the Drakkar.
For me, Kristen Ashley always meets expectations when writing her alpha male characters. In this novel she also does a fantastic job in writing strong female characters of substance. If you are looking for a good adventure romance, in a fantasy setting with sci-fi elements, then this is the story for you. Magic, elves, dragons, and a wonderfully crafted world await you within these pages. At over 500 pages for $3.99 it's a great value for a rich story with great characters giving it 4 1/2 stars. Links listed below for amazon, barnes and noble, and author's web page.
http://www.amazon.com/Wildest-Dreams-Fantasyland-Series-Book-ebook/dp/B005HH1HVM
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wildest-dreams-kristen-ashley/1105099123?ean=2940011458903
http://www.kristenashley.net/menu/titles/fantasyland_series.html
