Well.... wasn't that painful :/ Had to read it for a challenge and that was my only motivation.
Half a star and a headache.

This is not a nice review, because the book I am attempting to review is a blabbering, overly long, ridiculous mess. Actually, forget the reviewing part, I am so frustrated, I am just going to set my pet peeves free, before my brain bursts in flames.

* World building - none. Not even a room building, tho there was an attempt at a hot-tub building and a dungeon staircase building..... awww, I feel generous, I'll throw in the magical door building. There.

* Contradictions. Left and right. Top and bottom. North and South. Back and forth. Here, there and everywhere @.@

* Talk. Sex. - Overwhelming. Talk. Sex. Talk. Sex. Sex-talk. Pout. Talk/sex. Sex/sex. Magic/sex/talk. Pout. Sex. Talk. At most inconvenient times - more talk, more sex. What a page turner. Seriously, 20-30 at a time - skippity-skip!

* MCs - TSTL. Slower than a glacier. Both of them. Even the dragon said so himself. Poor chap, his life depended on these idiots. I was hoping they would shut up for half a minute to try to use their brains instead of their tongues. No. Only in the very end and by some unexplained miracle the fair princess had a thought revelation.

* Secondary characters. I don't know. There was not enough presence of any other character in this book to be secondary. Not the dragon, not the king, not the wasshispants-brother. MC's dicks have a better chance applying for this position.

* Villains - villainous. I don't know much about them to elaborate. Except for the brother was a rapist and the father was on a witch hunt.

* M/M? Why? M/F could have done just as nicely. Though I concede - it's easier to stroke someone's dick in public, than someone's pussy, what with accessibility and all. ( )

This is a great fantasy story. No epic quests looking for magical items, though. It is all about the inner journey of two men who don't just have their own personal demons to overcome, but need to find common ground as lovers as well—if a long-standing prophecy is to come true and bring peace to their realms.

Elias starts out as the weaker of the two. He is a "magic null" in a kingdom of mages and suffers some ridicule for it. Not the most self-confident person to start with, he gets taken prisoner and raped by a prince from a neighboring kingdom. He is then told, by the last dragon alive, no less, that said prince is his destiny, and that he will only unleash his own magic with the man's help. It takes Elias a long time to see the wood for the trees, but when he finally gets it, his growth is phenomenal.

Thraine has been mistreated by his father, brutalized by his own brother when he was younger, and knows he will need Elias to help him get revenge. Forced to rape him or see him raped by his evil brother, he has no choice but to hurt him. The knowledge that he may have ruined his chances of Elias ever loving him as much as he comes to love Elias almost destroys him. Not that it motivates him to talk about it or admit his true feelings until it's almost too late.

I really liked the way both men stubbornly struggled on their own, refusing to communicate until the circumstances forced them to change. The setting was good, even if the evil father and brother felt slightly overdone at times. But hey - it's a fairy tale, so I decided to go with it. It was definitely a great ride!
( )

In a recent polemic I said that I have hardly read 10 books with a rape in it and only 1 where the rapist and the raped become lovers after that… well now I have read 2.

‘Till Kingdom Come is a perfect example of savage romance, more it’s a perfect example of bodice rippers, and since here the two main characters are both men, this is a breeches rippers (and there is really a breeches ripping event). Actually this savage romance is respecting so much the rules of the genre that it reminds me a lot of The Wolf and the Dove, one of the first example of this genre and one of the most hated romances due to the “rape” factor; but since this novel by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss is also one of the first medieval romance women of my age read, it’s also one of the most loved.

As in that novel, here we have a dark and storming night during which Elias, the young heir to the queen, a powerful sorceress, is raped after having witnessed to the conquer and destruction of his own lands. In this novel it’s even worse since the one who rapes Elias is also the man who then takes him far away from his home and in captivity in his bedroom apparently as a sex slave. Thrain is indeed trying to protect Elias from his own brother and father, who have always wronged him, in the worst possible way. To “protect” Elias, Thrain has to subject him to the same violence he suffered when he was only 12 years old to the hand of his own brother; a violence that his own father didn’t stop.

Thrain knows, since it’s in his future, that Elias has the power to destroy his enemies, but this power can only be freed through Thrain himself. Thrain has not really desire of power, he wants only vengeance; he is not exactly an hero, his actions are not unselfish, actually he is willing, and ready, to sacrifice everyone to the purpose he is following. When he takes Elias, it’s true that he is trying not to have him killed, but he is not doing so since he is in love with the young man, but more since he doesn’t want to loose his chance.

Love arrives later for Thrain, but indeed it arrives. There is for sure the feminine-man/masculine-man pair here, but while Elias, with his almost annoying innocence is perfect in role for the first half of the pair, Thrain doesn’t really fit the second half. Actually, if not for the violence he suffered, that made him build an emotional shield around himself, probably Thrain would have been more similar to Elias, hence an innocent prince waiting for his knight in shining armor to free him from his ivory tower.

For sure ‘Till Kingdom Come is not a novel that can appeal everyone; there are a lot of points that are “risky” to everyone liking: the rape, the incest, the naivite of Elias. On the other hand, if you are of the old school, and you liked the bodice rippers, then this novel is exactly like that, and you will probably like it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003Y8XPMA/?tag=elimyrevandra-20