With this book Scarlet Hyacinth has achieved two results: first she proves she has matured from that first book I read, that had potential but that maybe too often fell into the traps for first time published authors, and second she proves also that, even if you are writing an “elven” story this doesn’t mean that your characters have to be beautiful and ethereal men dressed in frilly garments.

On the contrary, if not for the author who tells us these men are elves, aside for the pointed ears and the immortality, they are not much different from “ordinary” fantasy warriors and heroes. Jan’ke is a Darl Elf and a General of his people; he joined the war like many other young men did, in this fictional story and in reality, hoping to help his people, and instead found out that war is not heroic, but only death and pain. He is tired and he would well like to be left alone, with his pain; but Jan is also an important man, and his family want political bindings with the fae elves, and Jan will be the “bridge”.

During a party in the fae palace, Jan meets Alix, a blind fae elf; despite his disability, Alix is a warrior as well, and like Jan, he doesn’t like the war; the two men find a common ground and a solid basis to build a relationship, starting from friendship but soon landing in love. The problem is that, Jan has not the strength to fully opposing to his family’s plan, and Alix has a secret, a secret even to himself, that pushes him towards violence, the same violence he said he abhor.

I liked how the author balanced the two men; even if Alix is blind and also lower in social and military status, I have never found that he was “inferior” to Jan. Moreover, even if he assumes the submissive role during their lovemaking, this doesn’t influence so much his external behaviour, he is, and still remains, a warrior. Even the beauty of the two men, Alix more fragile and ethereal, Jan more dark and handsome, is described but not “emphasized”.

The camaraderie between the two arrives before love, and so for this reason, the first part of the book is a little more “dry”, and sex comes a bit later. But even when it comes, nor Alix or Jan turn in shrinking violets: Alix is not emasculated, even when he is weak and ill, he is the same man, the same warrior, the man in which Jan found a soul mate, someone who shared his same experience in a battlefield, and looked at it at the same way.

Actually, Unseen Paths is at the same time a romance but also a “military” journal: part of the story is told in retrospective, from the same words of Jan or Alix, who are remembering their past actions, and maybe trying to understand if they regret something. What they probably are judging as wrong is their “planning”, but never their love: even if it’s not emphasized by words and actions, the feeling is nevertheless strong and sustains both of them when they need it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003Z0CUNW/?tag=elimyrevandra-20