Published: March 20, 2020
Here we are once again for me to share my eternal love for all things Sherrilyn Kenyon. I really am a fan of hers and considering everything she is going through right now I was thrilled to find out that she republished Fantasy Lover as Julian of Macedon herself. I was told right off the bat that this book was the Editor’s Cut. Well, that means something different to so many people that I wasn’t quite sure what to expect until I started reading. Now for those of you that didn’t know the original book published as Fantasy Lover was not the manuscript that was turned in to the editor at Sherrilyn’s first publishing house. In fact the published work is much tamer than the one that she had originally pitched and there it doesn’t set up for the Dark Hunter series. However, this book did set up nicely for the Dark Hunter series in the original manuscript and there was much more drama.
For those of you who haven’t read Fantasy Lover (it’s probably one of my favorite books so I’ve read it a lot) the plot is fairly simple. Julian of Macedon was a Spartan general born of the goddess Aphrodite and Spartan general. Julian was well on his way to defeating Rome when he was tricked and trapped in a scroll (later a book) to be a sex-slave to whatever woman summoned him for a month. And, of course, like all of the Dark Hunter books Julian has a tragic backstory and it will hit you right in the feels. In comes Grace Alexander who is a sex therapist in modern day New Orleans. Well, modern when it was written so 1999 New Orleans. Only she was hurt so bad the first and only time that she had sex that the sex therapist is basically a born again virgin. So her best friend and mystic Selena finds Julian’s book and figures Grace could summon the enchanted man and have some great sex for a month. Not only does Grace not think this will work but when she does summon him and he appears she doesn’t know that he was trapped in there. Once she realizes that he has a history and was forced to be in the book she wants to help him. And the only way is to possibly be hurt again. Through all of this Grace is dealing with a stalker (who is the character that changes the most from the original manuscript to the published one) that is really freaking her out.
Okay so now that you kind of know what happens in the book you should know that Julian of Macedon has quite a few continuity issues and if you’re like me they may bother you considering they kind of threw me out of the story. Most of these issues revolve around the original storyline and the published storyline. So in the original storyline Rodney is a serial killer and in the published storyline he is a stalker. Needless to say in the original his story is a bit more interesting. But one continuity issue example is when he breaks into Grace’s house and ransacks the place in the published work he leaves Grace’s mom’s wedding rings. This is stated in this book as well. Only when Julian goes after Rodney he has the wedding rings and Julian brings them back to Grace and then gives them to her at the end of the book. There are a few things like that that are fairly major and other minor things like changing a name from Liza to Lisa back to Liza. So these make me think that Editor’s Cut in this sense means that this is the unedited manuscript. Like I said I didn’t know until I started reading because I thought it would just be the original storyline but it would be a fully edited book and these issues would be resolved. So while I am slightly disappointed that the book isn’t a smooth storyline I’m still glad to get this book in hardcover. I do hope that they fix the issues down the road but who knows. Still try to grab a copy of this book while you can. I think it is only available on Madaug Kenyon’s Etsy shop, Avalon’s Circle.
—“Julian drew his brows into a deep V. “Why do I constantly feel as if all of you are speaking a foreign language? What is ‘grabbing a burger at the Hard Rock’ supposed to mean?” / Grace laughed. “The Hard Rock is a restaurant.” / He looked aghast. “You eat at a place that advertises its food is hard as a rock?””- Julian and Grace, pg. 133—
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