Review: Elven Duty (Roman and Jude: Monster Hunters #1) by Rhys Lawless

Rating: 4.25

I’m such a fan of urban fantasy and fell in love with the entire Magic Emporium multi-author series, which this story was a part of.

Now it’s been re-edited, and the author added a chapter at the end to swing the characters and storylines into the next book.

So of course I needed to check it out.

All the wonderful elements remain intact. Two sons, from families that both despise and need each other , almost a urban fantasy Romeo and Jules, or in this case Jude tale.

Except one didn’t know he was a son of one of the battling families until his grandmother came looking for him.

That’s Jude Cohen,awesome game coder, foster kid, and apparently a elf to his surprise (although it does explain the ears and purple eyes). Soon to be weaver of the Aether magic.

Another terrific character is Aggie, aka Agatha Cohen, his grandmother , partner to Roman. She jumpstarts our story by barging into Jude’s life at a turning point.

Who’s Roman? That’s Roman Meyers, heir to the Meyers family, the one who can access the Aether. He’s immediately, enormously attracted to Jude, even before they knew who or what they were to each other. And the rules .

Descendants of Cain and Abel, elves and monster Hunters. One’s a weaver of Aether magic and the other the door to the Aether, magical threads of all life. A forever pairing, that comes with a rule . One can never love the other.

Some rules are made to be broken.

Lawless gives us complicated, damaged lineages of two powerful magical families. And monsters bent on entering the present dimension to destroy it all. Only the sons, their families stand in the way.

The plot is exciting. The characters well crafted, and some like Royal downright adorable. I’m definitely committed to finding out where Lawless is taking the storylines and their HFN romance next.

There’s plenty of unanswered questions here about the dead or missing members from both families, especially now that the readers learn some of the huge “secrets “ towards the end of the story.

I’m sure some of those will be forthcoming in Elven Game (Roman and Jude: Monster Hunters #2).

That’s where I’m going next. It’s to be released March 31, 2022.

Until then, I’m recommending Elven Duty! It’s entertaining and terrific fantasy.

Roman and Jude: Monster Hunters :

✓ Elven Duty #1

◦ Elven Game #2 – to released 3/31/2022

Elven Duty (Roman and Jude: Monster Hunters #1) by Rhys Lawless – Goodreads

Synopsis:

My legacy is to hate him, but I can’t.

Life was normal. Until a woman appears and tells me I’m an elf and she’s my grandmother. Not quite what I expected after another day at the office.

Soon, I’m thrown into a world of duty, magic, and monsters.

And a family feud as old as time itself.

I would have run. I would have gone back to my old life. Or started a new one.

But when the man I’m supposed to hate turns out to be my elven soulmate the only thing I can do is fight for my right to love him.
No matter what kind of monster gets in the way.

Notes:

Elven Duty is a gay urban fantasy romance with two star-crossed lovers, a ton of monsters hellbent on destroying this dimension and a secret “baby”. This book has a Happy For Now ending with a tease of the next book in the series.

This book was previously part of the Magic Emporium multi-author series. The only changes made are the fixing of awry typos and the addition of the last chapter tease.