OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Kit Rocha is the pseudonym for co-writing team Donna Herren and Bree Bridges. After penning dozens of paranormal novels, novellas, and stories as Moira Rogers, they reinvented themselves by writing the nine-book, multiple award-winning—and extremely steamy—Beyond series, which became an instant cult favorite. They followed it up with two spin-off series, including the popular Mercenary Librarians trilogy published by Tor.

Their favorite stories are about messy worlds, strong women, and falling in love with the people who love you just the way you are. When they’re not writing, you can find them making handmade jewelry, caring too much about video games, or freaking out about their favorite books, all of which are chronicled on their various social media accounts.

 

FORMAT/INFO: Queen of Dreams was published by Montlake on August 6th, 2024. It is 415 pages long and is told from multiple POVs, including Sachi, Ash, and Zanya. It is available in ebook, audiobook and paperback formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: After centuries of peace, the Court of Dreamers suddenly finds itself with enemies on all sides. It's bad enough that the royal court of mortals seems determined to break all ties with gods, declaring their followers heretics to be slaughtered. But an even worse threat has emerged: the god known as the Betrayer. After thousands of years of isolation on another continent, the Betrayer has reappeared - and he's got his sights set on Sachi, coveting her deep connection to the Dream itself. Sachi's lovers, the dragon god Ash and fierce warrior Zanya, have vowed to protect her. But when Sachi finds herself at the heart of the Betrayer's court, she'll have to use her own skills of seduction and political maneuvering to find a way to tear down the Betrayer's rule from within.

Queen of Dreams is a pulse-pounding finale to this fantasy romance duology, getting the heart racing with both scorching love scenes and epic battles. While the focus of book one, Consort of Fire, was largely on the developing relationship between Ash, Sachi, and Zanya, this second book puts the brewing world politics more front and center. Our main characters and the rest of the gods in the Court of Dreamers are gearing up for a war on two fronts, and they're fighting with every tool in their arsenal. There's politicking to be had at royal banquets, training of latent magical gifts, and a truly impressive climactic battle scene on the scale of gods.

The one slight downside here is that the romance itself ends up being more of a subplot. To be sure, there's still growth and development that happens over the course of the story, especially with Zanya. After her past traumas, she finds it a struggle to allow herself to be vulnerable in a relationship, making it difficult to find her place in the evolving relationship between herself, Sachi, and Ash. But while Consort of Fire had a fairly steady stream of spice (that fully leant itself to character and relationship development), Queen of Dreams ends up largely containing the spice to bookend the main plot in two major scenes. While those scenes absolutely earn every aspect of the description "scorching," I did find myself wishing they had been a little more spread out across the novel.

I have to take a moment to shout out Aleksi, the god known as the Lover. Although he only gets to shine in a couple of scenes, he absolutely stole my heart in his brief appearances - which is fantastic news because he will be one of the lead characters in the next duology set in this world! My hat's off to the writers, you did an excellent job of getting me salivating for your next work with just a few short scenes.

CONCLUSION: I have absolutely fallen in love with the world of the Court of Dreamers. I love the larger than life gods, I love the acceptance of love in all its forms, I love the epic stakes and equally epic battles. These books have joined the ranks of my gold standards for blending romance and epic fantasy, and I will absolutely be back for the next installment.