Title : Sword Dance
Author : A.J. Demas
Series : Sword Dance #1
Genre(s) : gay romance, historical fantasy
Release Date : July 31, 2019
Rating : 4.5/5 Stars
Buy Link : Amazon
Five years ago, Damiskos’s brilliant military career was cut short, leaving him with a permanent disability and scars that are not all physical. Adrift and still grieving, he tries to find meaning in an unsatisfying job.
Work takes him to the remote seaside villa of an old friend, where, among an odd assortment of guests, he meets the eunuch sword-dancer Varazda. Enigmatic and beautiful but distinctly prickly, Varazda is the antithesis of the straightforward and serious Damiskos. Yet as they keep getting in each other’s way at the villa, their mutual dislike is complicated by a spark of undeniable attraction.
Then the villa’s guests begin to reveal their true characters and motives—no one here is what they seem—and Damiskos finds himself at the centre of a bizarre web of espionage, theft, and assassination. Varazda may need Damiskos’s help, but not as much as Damiskos, finally awakening to a new sense of life and purpose, needs Varazda.
Sword Dance is the first book in the Sword Dance trilogy, an m/m romance set in an imaginary ancient world, with murderous philosophy students, sex acts named after fruit, and love blossoming in the midst of mayhem.
“Coming to know you has been the best thing to happen to me in years. (But) when I’m around you I feel … as if you cast your light on me. As if I’m a little bit better— a better man, a better person— because of you.” – Damiskos.
“I have room in my life for you, Dami. Of course I do. You’d be a part of my life I never expected to have…” – Varazda.
The story is about a used to be such a brilliant military officer that must ended his career due to the injury. During his to visit an old friend’s villa, he then accidentally meet this gorgeous sword dancer with both masculine and feminine look that suddenly caught his attention. Trapped together in a riot when the students and the fishermen seized the villa had put them in sudden situation to save the remain slaves and their owner. Damiskos and Varazda then shoulder to shoulder helping their friend fighting to gained back the villa and save the other slaves who being held hostage there.
Will everything works according to what they have planned?
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I’ve been falling in love with A.J. Demas writing style since I accidentally read Something Human. The way she wrote about love and imaginary politics conflicts in a fictional ancient world had successfully ‘fulfilled’ my thirsts about some historical story with strong male-male characters in it.
The believable story with ancient background, the slow pace, strong bonding between the two main characters that slowly build through their togetherness, the conflicts with the philosophers students, the political issues about nationalism, the gender identity issues are the points that made this book completely hard to put down.
As a starting book to the new series, Sword Dance had successfully caught my attention and now I really can’t wait for the next book in this series!
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