Judith‘s review of Magenta Starling by Natalie Dae
Cursed at birth, Dion is a demon who has searched for his beloved for centuries. Upon meeting Morgan, he knows she is the one he has been waiting for, the one woman he can love forever, the one woman capable of helping him break the curse. However, Jistin, the curse-giver, has other ideas.
Morgan longs for a relationship and release from her solitary life aboard her yacht, The Magenta Starling. She longs for Dion who’s not all that he appears. When he reveals his feelings for her, Morgan allows Dion to take her to his world, the realm of Thradmos. Her love for him growing even as she struggles to accept his reality, Morgan realizes she would do anything for him, including give up her life in the real world.
At a party held in celebration of Dion’s impending freedom, Morgan is snatched away by Jistin. In a final battle, Dion will fight not only for his freedom, but also that of his beloved, lest he be cursed for all eternity, and lose Morgan in the process.
This story seems to be built on the premise that true love, the kind that defies the ravages of time and circumstance, can be the factor that breaks the hold of intractable evil. We meet Morgan, a young woman who, for a variety of reasons, has isolated herself aboard her yacht and is earning a living as a Dominatrix, choosing loneliness rather than continue to be the brunt of others’ cruelties. She is every bit as much a prisoner of their evil as is Dion, a demon who has been allowed to travel to earth in order to find true love with a human, a love that will enable him to secure his release from the underworld. They have become involved emotionally and sexually as Dom/sub and that relationship has blossomed into a deep love.
I didn’t think the plot of this story was very original and certainly not very complicated. That is not to say that it wasn’t an entertaining read. But it did, at times, seem a bit ponderous and stilted, especially with the underworld setting resembling the times of 18th century Europe. It would appear that the residents were content to remain there, so that didn’t seem consistent with Dion’s desire to leave, a desire that had driven him to Earth time and time again. I also wondered about Dion’s and Morgan’s relationship: perhaps this goes back to my basic lack of knowledge about the Dom/sub involvement, although I have read that the Sub hold the real power in that configuration. It seemed that for a sexual Dominatrix, Morgan was way too submissive to the situation out of which Dion was seeking to extricate himself.
Now I know that this a fantasy, and as such it is going to be contrived in many ways. That it seemed contrived bothered me. Perhaps that’s more about me than the writer. I felt that the basic premise of the story was valid and that the issue of personal pain that enslaves good people was an issue worth exploring. I think the author had a genuine desire to do so. I did wish that Morgan could have found a way other than her love relationship to address her withdrawal from life. But maybe that’s why she loved Dion: he gave her the strength to address her fears and to fight what she believed in.
So I have to confess to going back and forth about this novella and really trying to find the positive aspects of this story. I read fiction because I believe that even fictional tales have to reflect the ups and downs, the good and evil, the positives and negatives of the human condition, whether or not that is done in a factual way or by way of fantasy. I think Ms Dae pulled some things off well. I just didn’t think the story held together as well as it could have. What should be changed? Now that is a matter for a future discussion. Suffice it to say that I did enjoy parts of this novella and found a certain amount of entertainment here. It just didn’t “wow” my sock off, and I am a little sorry about that. I like to be “wowed” on a regular basis. So I will look forward to reading some of Ms Dae’s future work. I think she is a good writer. I don’t think this was her best effort.
I give this novella a rating of 3 out of 5.
This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.
