Anne Bishop - Sebastian

Long ago, Ephemera was split into a dizzying number of magical lands-connected only by bridges that may take you where you truly belong, rather than where you had intended to go. In one such land, where night reigns and demons dwell, the half-incubus Sebastian revels in dark delights. But in dreams she calls to him: a woman who wants only to be safe and loved-a woman he hungers for while knowing he may destroy her.And an even more devastating destiny awaits him, for an ancient evil is stirring-and Sebastian's realm may be the first to fall.

Comment: I’ve had this book to read for a long time, since 2009 actually. I really need to get going with my TBR pile.

I delayed the reading of this one because I like to space the reading of books by the same author that aren’t in the same series, just another tactic to not mix worlds together.

Sebastian lives in Ephemera, a place where the world exists as created places come out of the power of talented women. Then, talented man create the bridges, which can be stable or moody, to connect all the places. One day, a young apprentice unleashed the trapped evil and from that moment on, freedom starts to disappear and the only hope is with Belladona, the most powerful of them all.

First of all, I’ve read this book translated. I got it a long time ago, in a book fair and I couldn’t wait to get it, although, obviously, I didn’t get to it at the time. I have to confess, these days, I read a lot more in English. Not only it’s cheaper but the words flow better. This is awkward saying as I’ve studied translation studies and I know the importance of them to the culture and the possibility to people who don’t understand foreign languages. I should advocate more nicely reading in Portuguese, but the truth is, lately, I find reading certain books in Portuguese too awkward because I can’t stop thinking how weird some things get, as I know them in the original. The same doesn’t happen when I read classics, for instance. I assume it’s the language factor, but with other works, it feels wrong to read some things in Portuguese, it sounds translated, and it shouldn’t but I know it’s not easy to use words and expressions that we don’t have and make them sound like every day's talk. It’s complicated.

So, all this to say I think my experience reading this was a bit ruined by the language. I don’t think I should let it get to me that much, but in a way, it did happen.

Another thing I noted is, after reading the other two published series, I found this one a bit darker. Nothing wrong with that, but I couldn’t help but look for that same usual balance between the darker scenes and the friendly ones where the reader can see the bond between characters. In this story this didn’t happen as obvious as that and I think the story felt unbalanced to the darker side because of that. I hope this issues gets “solved2 in the next book.

The world is quite imaginative. I had some trouble following some processes, but I was delighted by the author’s ideas about how it all should work.

The characters have their strong points, of course, some mystery, otherwise how boring could it be, and it has a romance between Sebastian and Lynnea. I won’t go into spoilers, but I found their romance not only too fast as too easy. I’m used to romances taking time, where the couple knows each other for a long time before being intimate and in here this didn’t happen and when they had sex it wasn’t special, it wasn’t magical, although it was a first experience for them both, in different ways, but still. And not a word about it until later and still very unemotional..I don’t know, I expected better.

I’m reading the next one because I already have it, but it’s a series that didn’t captivate me as much as the others.