Captive of the Horde King is book one of the Horde Kings of Dakkar series by Zoey Draven.  I will be honest with you, this book is approx.. 310 pages and I finished it in in like three hours and this is my second time reading it.

Book two centers around Luna and Arokan, a match that is incredibly interesting.  Luna is a human living in a town with 85 other people, one of whom is her brother Kivan.  Kivan makes a terrible mistake by burning the land, a MAJOR offense to the native people (of which Arokan happens to be a part of).  After promising her mother to look out of Kivan many many many years ago, Luna offers herself to the Horde King if he will spare her brother.  And yes, I do mean she offered herself in that way.

One of my LEAST favorite things that happens in romance novels is where character A hates character B, but then immediately falls in love with them.  It is crazy unrealistic and makes the novel a bit unenjoyable.  Thankfully it appears that Zoey Draven doesn’t like that either.  One of the first “intimate” moments between our hero and heroine is when Arokan is trying to get Luna to eat.  She refuses, steadfast that she will eat and survive off of what her village is surviving off of.  Arokan essentially picks her up, forces her onto his lap, and tries to shove food down her throat, determined to get her to eat.  The BOTH leave that meeting frustrated, angry, and more importantly confused.  There are two cultures clashing and it is something I LOVE.  If you as an author are going to give me cultures that are going to eventually mesh, I wanna see the bloody battles before they do.  The relationship between these two characters almost feels like a living breathing thing that I wish I could witness in person.

However, of course there is a bad.  In this book, our main “villain” (for lack of a better term) is Arokan’s aunt Hukan.  She does not approve of, does not like, refuses to be friendly with our heroine.  Hukon is rude, tattoos Luna far rougher than she needs too, and even tries to convince Luna to betray her husband and leave the Horde to go back to her village.  I would have loved to see Luna eventually win Hukon over, but that does not happen.  I won’t spoil the ending for you (because you should read this book), and while I do understand why the author did what she did, it was not my favorite thing to happen. 

Overall –  This is a great start to a series that, at the moment, is five books (expected to be six) long.  If you start reading this book and like it, I can almost guarantee you are going to like the other four books that are available as well.  That being said, if you are picky like me, the ending might not be as satisfying as it could be.

Plot – 8/10

Characters – 10/10

Originality –  10/10

General Joy of Reading – 9/10

Overall Score – 37/40

Captive of the Horde King – Zoey Draven

Cost* –  Kindle is $3.99 Paperback is $13.99 Book is included with Kindle Unlimited

*Cost is based upon what the book cost when book review is published