Review: Treasure

Title: Treasure
Series: The Lost Gods
Author: Megan Derr
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Publication Date: 25 January 2012
Reviewed Format: ebook
Length: 250 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5

Review: Nine hundred years ago, the gods were lost. Now, in the seafaring land of Kundou the power that the gods once called their own is in the hands of the royal family, including the youngest son, Nankyokukai. Kyo has a duty his family insists he perform to ensure that it stays that way, but Kyo has his own ideas of what needs to be done. To that end, he enlists the aid of merchant Raiden and Raiden's captain Kin, as well as his own acerbic secretary, Taka. Secret pasts and old grudges threaten to overwhelm their journey to a mysterious island very few men know of--and none know just what awaits them upon their arrival.

A quick preface: this is the third incarnation of Treasure that I've read, the other two being while it was available free on the author's website. It's changed a lot since those earlier incarnations--a lot.

The story revolves around four men in two sets of couples: there are the professional couples--Kyo and Taka, Raiden and Kin--and the romantic couples--Kyo and Kin, Raiden and Taka. The pairings are inescapable as they're fairly transparent from the get-go, but predictability has something going for it here.

Kyo tends to swing between two extremes: rather snotty and mired in self-pity and/or doubt. He's fairly frequently referred to as a brat, which he does front himself as, but I find him to be more of an ass most of the time, to be honest. His tortured "No one must learn of my plans!" aspect never really gets resolved until said planned actions are being completed, which makes me want to shake him until he removes his head from his ass, not necessarily in a sympathetic way.

Taka is, hm, spunky--and quite recognizable if you're familiar with the author's works. I'm not complaining much about that as he's one of my favorite archetypes, but he was definitely recognizable. He's argumentative and stubborn, to the point of being rather off-putting at times, but it's that much more enjoyable when he then gives in.

Raiden is another one bound in his secrets, although his weren't approached quite as well as Kyo's and so came a bit out of nowhere at the end. (Knowing said secret due to prior versions and on the lookout for his history to see if it had also changed, I still felt blindsided a bit at the end. There just wasn't much foreshadowing, when more might not have hurt.) His quirks and irreverence made him more appealing, but he wasn't particularly well-developed outside of his eccentricities.

Kin is the angry archetype, like Taka squared. His personality is compounded by his mermaid heritage, which usually manifests in scales, fangs, and pissiness. He's a "Don't take no for an answer!" kind of guy, which is charming most of the time, though the sheer force of his personality does get a bit overwhelming occasionally.

The romance between both couples is a lot of tension for most of the story, followed by a lot of sex. I don't recall anywhere near that much, if any, in the original and actually rather prefer it that way, as despite its heat it sometimes seemed shoehorned in. (For example, approaching the end there is a scene in which the story could follow either Kyo and Kin or Raiden and Taka. I wanted desperately to be party to the conversation between Raiden and Taka, but instead got Kyo and Kin fucking. It was a little disappointing.)

The supporting cast is a lot of set-up for the sequels, with major players for each land with more gods appearing. Aside from those, however, it's pretty well limited to the four main characters--which is just fine, really, as they're enough to carry the story.

The story itself is interesting, though I missed some aspects of the original that were left out here and didn't care for others that were introduced. It's a fun quest romance on its own, just not quite the trip down memory lane that I'd hoped.

Unfortunately, typos and grammatical errors are rife throughout. Even names are swapped here and there. It's usually possible to infer what's meant, but I spent a lot of my time reading with a mental red pen. A touch (or a lot) more editing couldn't have hurt, and may also have helped some of the redundancy and awkward phrasing that cropped up here and there.

I feel I'm judging this harshly as I'm comparing it to my memories, and honestly I probably am. On its own, it is a nice story with interesting romances, but I think that something of its original charm was lost in its evolution. Still, I enjoyed the world enough that I'll be picking up the revised sequels as well, and look forward to seeing how else it has changed.