Ismeni: A Prelude to The Legend of Sheba by Tosca Lee

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Personal Kindle Library

Read:  August 27, 2014

A mysterious beauty, a destiny set in the stars. Born under an inauspicious sign, young Ismeni is feared by her own people. The single thing she prays for: to live an invisible life. But that is not to be for the young woman who has captured the attention of the king's youngest son. A story of love, passion, and twists of fate through the eyes of the woman who will one day give birth to the legendary Queen of Sheba.

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Why am I only now discovering Tosca Lee? It's a short, but Ismeni: A Prelude to The Legend of Sheba is absolutely fabulous and I can't for the life of me understand how I've not encountered this author before. 

The situational drama is believable despite the brevity of the piece and I couldn't help falling in love with Lee's heroine. I admit the plot leans toward the predictable, but the style and language in which it is written is flawlessly addictive. 

I'm not usually one to promote promotional freebies, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. Ismeni is a delightful diversionary read that left me dying to get my hands on The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen.

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My mother argued my innocence against the tribal elders, who, I am told, craned to peer at my face even as she tried to shield it with her hands so they might not call such loveliness in a child unnatural . But men are easily swayed by fear. And so I grew up with the burden of a beauty that cannot be celebrated because of its potential, at any moment, to kill.

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