Sometimes when you read a book, you know exactly what to expect. If it's a good book, then the journey to the predictable end will be worth the trip. On occasion, I like books like that. There are other times, however, when you're complete surprised by a book and get knocked loopier than a monkey on crack.

The Forge: Discoveries, hopefully the first in a series, is one of those surprise books. Having read a few things from Shaunna Wolf previously, I picked up The Forge, expecting a rip-snorting fantasy yarn. What I got was all that and a whole lot more. Wolf manages a neat trick: she weaves two of the hottest sex scenes I've ever read almost seamlessly into the flow of her story.

Most sex scenes read like the author needed to pad out some space and prop up a sagging narrative so it's, "Hey, let's throw in a little sex." Not this time. Wolf uses the -- and, again, I should emphasize these scenes are explicit and engaging -- sex to further the development of her main character, Jezren Dark Sky.

Jezren Dark Sky was a happy woman. She'd escaped her life on the hard streets of Earth to become a warrior for the Order of the Night Bird, hunting down killers with her alien husband, Din'arik. Her life was everything she could have asked. Right up until the moment when she was ambushed in a bar and stabbed. Din'arik gave her life for his, healing her and having his soul bound within Jezren's sword.

A year later, Jezren is lonely, bitter and a hardened hunter of those who kill sapients. She's stayed away from the Order homeworld because it hurts too much to be reminded of her husband's people. But she can stay away no longer when she is called back to help perform a secret ritual with her husband's egg-brother (read that as twin) Jin'arik. What she discovers there will change her life, but will it be enough to pull her out of her self-destructive spiral?

Well, okay, yeah we know it will, but it's still a heck of a ride. If you enjoy fantasy or erotica, you'll love The Forge: Discoveries. Go get it now.

Reviewed by Richard Jones
© October 2006