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Lady Athina
Things have gotten worse for our protagonist since we saw them last in Lord Athina. Danny C. Estes outdoes himself in the second installment of his trilogy: Lady Athina. Our protagonist, Jim, who was whisked away from the world as we know it and plunged into the body of a sixteen-year-old high-born woman who has just given birth is not out of the woods yet. Lady Athina follows Jim’s trial in the body of Athina as he tries to make sense of what happened to him at the end of the previous book. Feeling more isolated than before, Jim finds himself meeting both of Athina’s parents and realizes that he is now an eligible female whose parents want her wed. Still struggling to accept the fact that he is no longer a man in his late thirties but a woman in her prime, Jim rejects everything and everyone with the entirety of his being. Assassination attempts have him learning how to use a knife but he’ll be damned before he lets himself be married off.
Lady Athina is much more of an emotional ride than the previous tale. Even though he is in a woman’s body, Jim’s male mind is still infatuated with breasts and women so the very thought of marrying, and consummating said relationship, with a man makes the very heterosexual Jim balk. In fact, we learn that Jim would rather get naked with Renault, a female guard who is staying with Athina’s family since she saved Athina’s life, than with Wendell; the young man Athina was apparently smitten with many years before she was married off.
Jim struggles in this tale with the fact that he is not used to the frail female body he’s trapped in, but he also struggles in dealing with trauma from his former life. Dealing with flashbacks of his youth growing up in a household ruled by domestic violence, it is clear to see that his distaste for how Athina’s father treats her is founded in personal experience. There are some things that will translate no matter what sex you are.
In an attempt to flee marriage to Wendell, Jim/Athina finds himself/herself running from the safety of Athina’s father’s walls and out into the unknown world. Jim receives kindness from strangers who basically keep him alive long enough to be sucked into an enchanted forest and into the hands of the wizard who rules there. It is here that Jim reunites with Renault and discovers parts of himself he thought were long buried. With his newfound understanding of himself and his relationship to the body he now inhabits, Jim forges forth to write a new tale for Athina.
This installment in the Athina series is a refreshing change from the obsession with the female-form that the first had. Estes has a clearer grip on Jim as a person as he guides the story over more realistic emotional hurdles that the first book lacked. Picking up smoothly from where the first book ended, Lady Athina is a welcome tale of adventure and defiance that leaves readers begging for more.
Pages: 224 | ASIN: B00JSQ5XHW
Lord Athina
Danny C. Estes’ first installment to his saga, Lord Athina, is quite unlike anything else you might read today. We start our journey in ‘our’ world with forty-one-year-old Jim Sanders. Jim is a bit down on his luck, stuck in traffic and grumbling about all the things that are pushing his buttons lately. That doesn’t last long, however, as Jim soon finds himself staring down death via metal piercing his minivan. In a sense, Jim does die and he finds himself wandering a plane of nothingness only to be pulled into a strange reality. He’s confused, he doesn’t know what’s going on and all he knows is that everything about him feels different somehow. His body hurts, but not where the metal pierced him and not in a way he’s ever experienced before. That’s because Jim’s soul has been pulled into an alternate reality and promptly plunked into the body of a young woman who is giving birth.
Estes does a great job showing Jim’s confusion towards his new situation. He very much thinks and feels like a man, however his body is completely changed. He’s also been transported to a seemingly alternate world where the people are living in an age of renaissance or medieval time. Not only does Jim struggle to understand what has happened to him he’s in a panic and completely out of his element. For six agonizing days as Jim’s body recovers from the trauma of childbirth his soul approaches recovery of his situation. On the final day he is greeted by a wizard who explains what has happened. The world Jim is now in has magic and this wizard had very much wanted to bring a soul back to the body of Lady Athina, however he wasn’t bargaining on Jim’s soul being the one he grabbed.
Jim is confused and you can feel his anger, confusion, frustration and helplessness oozing through every page. For a first volume in a saga Lord Athina does a fantastic job setting the scene. We learn about the world our protagonist has found himself in and we get a grasp on how the politics and monetary transactions work. Estes sets up a great story line with enough intrigue and betrayal to keep any reader happy. Nothing feels over the top and where some authors can spoil the whole idea of magic, Estes peppers it into his story just right.
Jim must get accustomed not only to this strange world where he’s found himself in a precarious position but he must also become accustomed to the body of a young girl. His male ego and libido do nothing to help his plight which can be a bit cumbersome to read. Jim finds almost all the women we meet in the story attractive and wants nothing more than to have his way with them.
Aside from minor grammatical issues and the extensive obsession Jim has with breasts, Lord Athina crosses boundaries and perspectives unlike other tales in the fantasy realm. It’s definitely a treat to read.
Pages: 226 | ASIN: B00DT0C1DC
LITERARY TITAN 