Title: Elian
Series: The Marriage Groups #1
Author: Vicktor Alexander
Genre: MMMM / Alternate World
Length: Novel
Publisher: The Rooster and the Pig Publishing (May 10th, 2013)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥2.5 Hearts
Reviewer: Thommie
Blurb: Elian Glinkobia is the youngest son of his family. Born on the planet, Kardalusia, he is the only breeder, the only coração, born to a family full of Kartusian warriors and soldiers. He was born with no other purpose than to be the coração of a marriage group, there to serve them in every manner that they needed. Or so he thinks. Attending his final marriage soiree, Elian believes that he will not be picked by any marriage group and is destined to live his life alone, or as a prostitute. He is beyond shocked to find out that he was chosen by the royal marriage group the year before. He is to be the coração, the heart, of the three kings, Nevin, Corbin, and Gaige.
However, things are not always as easy as they seem. Before Elian can even settle into his position as The Royal Coração, someone attempts to murder him. Placed under lock and key in the palace by his husbands, Elian begins to discover that the gods of the Kartusians gifted him with a lot more than he could have ever expected.
Will Elian’s special gifts come in handy when he needs those to save his husbands and their people, or was everyone right about his worthlessness?
WARNING: This story contains double penetration, sex between multiple partners M/M/M/M, male pregnancy, violence, interracial couples, the possession by a deity on numerous occasions, and multiple orgasms. Read at your own risk.
Product Link: http://www.bookstrand.com/elian
Review: Well I must admit that there has been quite some imagination put in this story. The author has created a world, a planet called Kardalusia that is inhabited only by men. They society is different from what we’ve seen so far as the Kartusians are meant to form Marriage Groups of four, one would represent the body of the family, another the mind, the third the soul and the last would represent the heart that keeps them all together; the coração. As the God Andalusia has said, the heart will be the most important and cherished of them all, for he is to be the breeder, the one to bind them all. However, with the passing of millennia, things are bound to change and what was once cherished now is looked down upon and somehow scorned. The God in his know it all has given the prophecy that one day, one special coração will come to change it all, not only the status of all coraçãos in the planet, but the planet itself. But as we all know, when one good prophecy is made, a dark one rises to overthrow it.
In all honesty, I kind of liked the idea of this world, and let’s face it; I’m a sucker when it comes to ménage or foursomes. So a world created only for men, not two or three but four, it was fun. A man though being the breeder and having babies, now that was something to cringe about yet that was explained somehow by the magical nature of the Kartusians, as each and every one of them has some level of magic given by the Great Andalusia himself.
However, the story or plot if you will didn’t manage to keep that level of interest for long. I suppose when you create a world you need some space to stretch things out and time to make things stick. There were many mistakes made throughout the story that not only gave way to too much but also in some places contradicted what had previously been told.
When the story starts Elian comes off as a very insecure being. He feels scorned for being only a coração, especially since he has no other attribute that would give him some more purpose. He also has yet to find a Marriage Core and if he doesn’t by the end of the night, he’ll be faced turn himself to prostitution or remain a spinster and care for others. It is like this that we see how awful a coração’s life could be if left unclaimed, since he doesn’t have the choice to choose or keep searching for however long he wants.
But then the impossible happens and he is claimed by the Royal Marriage Core and in a blink of an eye his entire life changes and he becomes King. We also notice some kind of spirit there since he stands up for himself and doesn’t let people step on him just because he’s a coração. However this comes and goes and Elian is at some point intimidating and secure and the next incapable to even speak. He is possessed by the God himself, has been told over and again by the God that he is special, he has powers, he can do whatever he wants in the sphere of magic, but he fails to make use on them except twice and to be honest both those times were not so significant comparing to the life-threatening event in the end which we totally missed because he fainted, hence we don’t know how or why he was saved.
We are also being told in the very beginning that the Marriage Group of the special one would be special. They would be strong enough to help and protect their coração. Again, that got lost during the play of the story. Beside the fact that the marriage group was the royal one there was no real display of strength or powers. I was somehow disappointed by Nevin, he was supposed to be the head King coming from the royal bloodline and the strong one, the leader, but somehow we never saw him leading. In addition, his domineering nature was poorly displayed and in my opinion, the only BDSM-y scene involved was completely lost and unnecessary. Perhaps it was to display the trust Elian had in him, but as I said, it failed to do so. Corbin was the man in between that I never fully understood his purpose or his specialty and last there was Gaige. Now Gaige has the potential to be majestic due to his Zevinxian heritage. He had magic cursing in his blood from the very beginning and the ability to shift. Did we get to see that? No. All that potential lost and in frankly I don’t understand why. What was the point of having this incredible world and not take full advantage of. I know my imagination went wild and I was definitely expecting the powers implied to come crashing in an epic of battles, so I was really disappointed when that didn’t happen.
As for the villain of the story I don’t understand what happened there, Gaige was supposed to have revealed his identity two months prior the main scene when Elian gave birth to the triplets, I expected that they would be onto him by that point so when all chaos broke the only thing that surprised me was the fact that while in previous chapter the Kings talked about it, in the “chaos” chapter it came as new information.
Anyway, as I said previously the story had great potential that was left unexploited. The plot many holes that didn’t help the books case. The bad guy and the final ending scene were almost ludicrous. The giving birth thing was something that had me cringing and my insides churning no matter how much it was justified by magic, it simply didn’t appeal to me. I did love the intimate scenes, well most of them, but in the end I felt like this book needed more time and more work for as it is, it’s lacking.