Title: Awakening in Sapphire
Series: Once & Forever Kings: Book One
Author: Jonathan Hawker
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 502 Pages
Category: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Rating: 3.5 Stars
At a Glance: Stylistically speaking, this book and I didn’t jibe, but overall, Awakening in Sapphire throws out some great surprises and originality to give an awesome spin to an old legend.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Camelot is fallen. King Arthur is dead. The world carries on, slouching toward its final breath.
“I do what I have to just to stomach this cesspool I woke up to!”
Seventeen hundred years after the events that shaped him into a villain of legend, Morgan le Fay wakes, little more than flashes of his life past to guide the way. Thus, he dons the mantle the world has fashioned for him, cloaking his true identity beneath the guise of a mercenary—teaching the neon city of Etna that he is not one to be trifled with.
“And me? What about my life helped you stomach this place?”
Aaron Jones will never know a land beyond this one, and while it may not be a place of fairytales, he does everything within his limited power as an officer with the ECPD to make it safe. That is until his efforts lead him to a dark alley in the middle of a city-wide blackout, and a jab to the neck lands him on Etna’s missing persons list.
The past and future collide in Etna—one of the final bastions of humanity—as Morgan navigates the schemes of the corporate giant, Esotech, the politics of the Occult Community—and the notion that he could be so much more than the world remembers.
Review: Awakening in Sapphire is conceptually outstanding. What’s not to love about a Sci-Fi/Fantasy with a dash of Cyberpunk retelling of Arthurian legend, after all? Jonathan Hawker’s imagination is exceptional, and his own love for his characters is beyond obvious. It’s admittedly my own nitpicks that jumped in to curb my overall enthusiasm of the book, though they didn’t curb my enthusiasm for the story’s originality. The main issue is I wasn’t as enamored of his protagonists as the author intended me to be.
Hawker morphs these legendary characters into the story of a futuristic battle of good and evil amidst the flashes of memory that Morgan Fell (aka Morgan le Fay) can’t make sense of after awakening from an ancient curse some seventeen centuries later. The author transforming not only Morgan but many of the familiar characters from King Arthur’s tales into his own lexicon of brash and bold heroes was done with attention to detail and a special accent on diversity, which I loved.
There is a romance which evolves throughout the story that includes a fated mates aspect, between Morgan and Aaron Jones, a police officer and the man who is on the side that Morgan opposes with every fiber of his being. And with good reason. The building of their relationship leans into the bond and some twists that are eventually revealed along the way, with some sweet, moony-eyed touches here and there as well as conflict that, at times, was handled by the characters with all the finesse of a teenage melodrama.
The building of found family is this novel’s most endearing feature. As Morgan is portrayed as a gruff, standoffish loner, the characters who both insinuate themselves in his life and those he draws into his life himself was a great way to soften him and open himself up to Aaron in ways that, while Morgan resists, gives the story a softness amongst its malevolence and a calm between the tension and action.
Stylistically speaking, this book and I didn’t jibe, but overall, Awakening in Sapphire throws out some great surprises and originality to give an awesome spin to an old legend.
You can buy Awakening in Sapphire here:
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