Books like Immortal Champion

A hearty golf clap for Ms. Hendrix. Bravo, Ms. Hendrix, bravo. She wound up slowly, but, after two problematic installments, Lisa Hendrix finally throws an outstanding pitch in her third Immortal Brotherhood (IB) novel, Immortal Champion.\ Immortal Warrior\ , IB #1, while a great debut, read lukewarm without enough conflict, peaks or dramas. \ Immortal Outlaw\ improved on the original by a passionate hero yet suffered a lackluster plot. Champion delivers on both romance and adventure fronts, following Gunnar, once a viking warrior and now a cursed werebull, and his love interest Lady Eleanor de Neville.Eleanor and Gunnar meet when he saves her from a fire one night and again, four years later in a reunion surprisingly realistic. Gunnar attracts Eleanor instantly, but her powerful father schemes to marry her well. Hendrix exploits the Neville-Percy feud for her characters and casual references to cottars, word choices in exposition like "parlous," even Norse mythology, reveal that Hendrix researched her novel and enriches her narrative with detail and setting, but readers need no familiarity with the War of the Roses or the feud, just love for period. Hendrix takes advantage of fun medieval staples like tourneys, arranged marriages, and courtly love while maintaining focus and paring away the irrelevant. She focuses on Eleanor and Gunnar, whom I never really doubted since we witness their courtship and growing relationship. That cuteness and slow burn contrasted well with later, more violent adventures, so that we saw both the sweet, humorous Gunnar and the deadly warrior, both a charming Eleanor and a steely lady. I enjoyed them along with the secondary cast and stories, Lucy, Percy, Mary, John, even Anne. While they never overtook the narrative, Hendrix's careful fleshing of every character, no one a prop, made Champion a joy to read. I wanted books for all of them.In addition to each character's conflicts, evil witch Cwen continues to haunt the brotherhood in Champion. Hendrix builds an original mythos from vikings, their totems, and a new spin on the results of their plundering. The men take the form of dog, stallion, wolf, bear, bull, eagle, hart, lion, raven-- risky that she doesn't keep to the usual suspects, big cats and wolves, but creative and more relevant to these men, each with their own personalities.One might expect these layers to produce a bloated or meandering narrative, but Champion's surprisingly tight, every scene selected to move the story forward, nothing dragging or superfluous. The end slowed, but otherwise, readers will hardly notice the pages turning. Champion remains mostly a historical romance and best for those readers, but anyone interested should give it a try. I'm certainly glad I stuck with this series, and I hope the next book's even better! Solid four stars!PS. Four stars for the heat too. These guys are not kidding around. ;)