Review : By Mistake by Megan Derr
Andrus is a man in despair. His family, once illustrious and powerful, was destroyed forever when his great grandfather betrayed everyone and killed a beloved royal prince. Now the last of his bloodline, Andrus is mere days away from losing what little he has left, and his only options are living on the streets or surrendering himself to a man he despises.
Oresti is a man of secrets and lies, his days spent as a city investigator dealing with the worst people in the kingdom, his nights fulfilling his duties as a royal prince and solving unsavory problems for his father. Currently he is charged with determining whether the recent death of a powerful duke was truly natural, and if not, who is responsible for his death—and why they killed him.
Desperate to escape the horrid fate awaiting him, Andrus attempts the very magic he’s forbidden from using—but instead of the harmless helper he meant to summon, he instead calls forth one of the most dangerous demons in existence, setting off a chain of events that will drag mysteries old and new into the light, and save or destroy a kingdom.
SOME SPOILERS IN THE REVIEW
Review:
Dear Megan Derr,
Overall I am a big fan of your work and I did enjoy this story, but I had questions too. First of all as I often do, I found your characters very likable. Andrus’ situation at the beginning of the story made me sympathize with him a lot, but also I felt respect for him not just pity, in how he tried so hard to survive and was not afraid to work any small job he could find.
I was glad Oresti wanted to help him. I found the chemistry between them really sweet, despite some initial antagonism from Andrus and even that was not really antagonism, but his pride. In short I liked their connection a lot. I liked Oresti’s family a lot and appreciated their strong bond between siblings and actually believed that they would accept Andrus so fast. It just made sense considering for how long Oresti was resisting the possibility of any relationship at all and that Andrus was just very likable.
My main problems with the relationship development were two. First the addition of the third person – NO, not because the relationship became a triad per se, but because I could not see what both Andrus and Oresti saw in the third person. I mean I could see the attraction, I just did not see why and I could even see that after the third person was added they were lovely together (and hot, too), but not why the third person was added in the first place.
I also thought that in the last quarter or so Andrus became a little too much of damsel in distress. Two of them were doing stuff and Andrus was resting? I get that he helped in the final battle so to speak, but I felt that the relationship dynamic became a little unequal, that the two were mostly protecting Andrus.
The smaller issue was that I was so excited that the story may have had a mystery element. The bad person who did one bad thing apparently did many other bad things and that was made clear really quickly within the story. I thought that Oresti would be investigating who killed several people, but alas that went nowhere.
Grade: B-
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