Chosen is a good book about a woman with a gift and her people believe she is The Chosen. They believed it so much that most gave up their lives to protect her. Shanti, the lead in this book and probably the series, is a leader, a warrior, and a woman that can touch people with her mind. She is on a quest.
It's hard for me to put this book in a place. Some people and societies are slow-paced hunter/gatherer and some places are cities with candle lanterns in the main streets with houses of rich leather and wood. Shanti is from a place that places battle training at the top of the list, the city she goes to is regimented with an army but has normal city life, while another city is in a rustic place somewhere between the two. The villain is a society of people that take over other cities by the sheer numbers of their armies and the higher you are in the food chain, the better your life. Shanti's quest is to stay free and keep her people from being taken.
Enough of that. Chosen while an original story has been done over before different ways. I like it enough to read the next in the series. While not a majority of Breene's writing is like this, here is a part that doesn't reach out and grab me.
She watched him, noting a crease between his eyebrows as he looked inward. She took this opportunity to assess him without interruption. His masculine face looked like it was chiseled from stone, then sanded by a great artist. His bone structure was defined and symmetrical, with dark bushy brows that gave his eye sockets a striking depth. When he wasn’t busy being so serious and in control, he had a pleasant vibe about him—a charisma that exuded a sort of animalistic primal quality. He was one well-made, handsome bastard. And judging by all the women batting their eyes at him, he was in demand. Some men just had it all.and then there is . . .Okay.” She crawled to his side and kneeled, positioning one hand in the center of his warm back, and one nestled between his pecs. She couldn’t stop a flitted grin, fighting her desire to let that hand roam around his well-built chest. The man was a perfectly defined powerhouse. She hadn’t seen anyone this well-proportioned in useful muscle…ever, maybe. The men from her land were thinner, lithe. He was…not.
Maybe reach out and grab me wasn't the correct term to use but I can read books like this. Some of her suggestive thoughts and the most graphic is a stolen kiss by the head of a city she is talking about above. I like the Kate Daniels series and the Deadwood Murder Mystery series and they started out mild and grew in passion, some boot shaking but not as bad descriptive wise as some romance scenes written by some male writers. I want to make it clear I'm not comparing the writers or stories, just the romance in them.
I did enjoy Shanti's jocularity as a female warrior in a town where women were supposed to be the weaker, obedient sex where the men did all the warring. Breene's verbal sparring was really good.
I give this a 7 of 10 rating. Good enough to read the next in the series.
The Chosen by K.F. Breene
Book 1 in The Warrior Chronicles series
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