Broken Dove by Kristen Ashley (Fantasyland #4)

4 Stars

I had really been looking forward to hearing about Apollo and Ilsa.  It sounded heartbreaking and nobody writes heartbreaking better than KA.  The beginning was wonderful and the end was wonderful.  I stopped reading in the middle because it got a little “blah”.  I just recently decided to give it another try and I am super glad that I did.  I feel like the storyline has a resolution, but Noc (Prince Tor’s this world version) is going to get his own story (I am worried Franka is the heroine and she is NOT likeable).  This one takes place in our world so I am not sure if a new storyline will begin with his story.

Apollo’s Ilsa died five-ish years ago and he has paid Valentine a whole lot of diamonds to get the Ilsa of this world to him.  He wants to replace his dead wife.  Oh boy.  He brings her to his world and immediately decided this was a bad idea.  She is not his dead wife, Isla but she looks exactly like her so his pain is immense.  He abandons her almost immediately at one of his estates with his men.  The problem is the Apollo of our world is a bad, bad man.  Ilsa had been running from him for years and had just found her when good Apollo brought her here.  Thus, she can’t go back. 

Of course, the reader knows that it is only a matter of time before Apollo finds that he loves this Ilsa and of course it happens.  This is where I lost interest.  However, not long after this the action picks up with the bad guys from the previous books starting a war.  Ilsa gets to know Circe, Finnie and Cora (I had to go back and read Finnie’s story after finishing this book!).  What I didn’t like about Ilsa (or as she is known in this world, Maddie) is that she is not nearly as sassy as the other women.  She doesn’t stand up to Apollo and is always apologizing.  However, I think this goes with a character who has been terrorized mentally, verbally, emotionally and physically by a bad man for years and then being on the run for years.  I never got a good picture of what she looked like in my head and in fact I feel like I knew Apollo better in his appearances in the other books than in this book. 

I had a hard time thinking that Apollo loving a dead Ilsa and then meeting the living one was a good plot idea.  Too much baggage for him to move past this. In short I am glad I finished for this completion of the story line, but not for the story between Apollo and Ilsa.