My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Under the Black Banners
Author: K. Elle Morrison
Format: eBook (Kindle Unlimited)
Pages: 290
Publication Date: 7/25/21
Publisher: Independent
Categories: Urban Fantasy, Adult, Assassin
Secret royal families. Unspoken alliances. Mysterious murder plots.
When I was approached for this unusual assignment, I wasn’t sure if I should take it or not. It was rare for an assassin to be recruited to protect someone, and even rarer still that an Incubo would reach out to a Mortal for help. The money was good, and the job seemed easy enough. Keep a young Incubo woman alive until her wedding day. Not long after arriving at the stately manor of her betrothed did I realize that there was more to this mysterious species than Mortals were led to believe. If I can manage to stay alive and finish this assignment, it may mean stopping society from toppling.
Under The Black Banners is the first installment to this enticing three-part series. Follow Isa Nera as she learns more about the secrets of the Incubo and learns to defend herself against dangers she never could have imagined possible. This urban fantasy weaves subtle magic and realistic romance into an exciting journey from neutral third party to possibly the only Mortal with the skills to stop a war from devouring and ending an entire species.
What drew me to this book was the cover and then the intriguing synopsis. What’s an Incubo? Are they like an Incubus or what? I had to find out.
The world building was interesting with Mortals and Fata basically being the two “species” in this world and now a third species or being that has made inroads in their society, the Incubo.
I really enjoyed getting to know Isa Nera, who is an assassin for the Black Banners, an elite organization. She is pretty badass…for the most part. She takes on an assignment to protect a high ranking, Incubo royal, Althea. Isa has to protect her until her wedding day.
If you like sexy books, this one gets hot right off the bat. There is no build up – apparently these Incubo men have major powers of seduction, so Isa may be an assassin but even she can’t quite resist Talos who is basically her boss. There is also another guy in the mix, Amil, so there is a lot of steamy scenes in this book. I don’t know if it’s a love triangle because even though Talos feels jealousy it seems he’s open to sharing? 🤷🏻♀️ Now, I do have to mention, Isa starts to train with Amil to resist these seductive mind control powers of the Incubo, so at least she learns something about them that will be helpful if she needs to defend herself from them.
Content Warnings: 18+, violence
I wanted Isa to stay a badass but I feel like her mission to protect Althea was kind of not her priority when Talos was in the room. She held off her attraction better when Amil was around and I do feel like they at least were actively protected Althea but when Talos was around? I was like come on, Isa, get it together sis. Also…a lot of her time spent with Althea was wedding planning and honestly I got bored. I love a good wedding planning book but I wanted to see the assassin in action. I wish the energy the book started with continued throughout – but it didn’t.
I don’t know if it’s a love triangle or polyamorous relationship but I do know I liked Amil more than Talos. Both are dangerous men, of course Talos is the more older and alpha one but Amil to me was just more attentive to Isa’s feelings.
I couldn’t connect to Isa maybe because all she was doing was babysitting Althea, wedding planning and having a good time with Talos and Amil – but there was a matter of someone in her Black Banner family in trouble. She was troubled by it…but couldn’t do much from where she was, I guess. Now the Black Banners sounds really interesting and I’d love to learn more about them! I found Isa more exciting in the beginning of the story when we learned about her assassin life and even met a friend of hers – I want to know more about her friends and found family with the Banners.
Why you should read it:
- craving a sexy story
- the world building is creative with the Black Banner assassins, the Mortals, Fata and Incubo
- assassins
Why you might not want to read it:
- Isa’s job got boring – the sex was the exciting part for her
- polyamorous is not your thing
My Thoughts:
I didn’t have many expectations going into this one but I did find the world building creative with the different species living together. I would have liked to connect to Isa more than I did. I love that she is an assassin but I just want to know more about her outside of her sex life. Not to say she doesn’t have an interesting sex life, I’m happy she has two men keeping her pleased haha, lucky girl. I want the emotional connection though and to get to know more about her found family the Black Banners and yes I wanted more assassinating taking place. 😅
📚 ~ Yolanda
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