Review: The Price of Freedom by Jenny Schwartz

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Publisher: Carina Press

Where did you get this book: Purchased from publisher website

Release date: Available now

This review contains spoilers!

Blurb taken from Carina Press website:

Duty will bring them together—and tear them apart!

As a guardian angel, Mischa must protect the one man who may be able to bring about lasting peace to the Middle East. As a djinni, Rafe must fulfill the wishes of a terrorist leader. Their duties colliding, Mischa and Rafe become foes, but the heat between them is undeniable.

When the terrorist learns that a guardian angel stands between him and his greatest wish, he orders his djinni to remove her. Taking creative license, Rafe spirits her away to his private oasis, where she will be unable to protect the peacemaker.

Beyond their mutual desire, they find common ground in honor and loneliness. Passion quickly grows into love. But it’s soon clear to Rafe that love cannot be bound, and Mischa must be true to her life’s purpose. Even if Rafe must sacrifice his own taste of freedom to grant hers…

When Carina Press launched last month, I decided I wanted to pick up a couple of their titles to read on vacation. Every time I went to the site, I kept returning to The Price of Freedom. The cover art is gorgeous, and I love the title (actually I love the titles of several pieces available on the site). But I kept going back to the blurb.

I liked the angel/djinn match-up, it was different from all the “supernatural creature falls for a human” stories out there. Plus, it’s set in the Middle East, and I like reading about places I will probably never get to visit.

On some levels, The Price of Freedom really worked for me. I liked the pairing of Mischa, the whatever-it-takes guardian angel, with Rafe, the I’m-sick-of-greedy-humans-and-their-hate djinn. One set to protect humanity, the other used by people for centuries. In a longer work, that conflict could have really shone, but within the constraints of the novella, it was necessarily minimized. Even with that in mind, Mischa and Rafe work well as a couple.

Their love scenes were a mixed bag for me. I loved their initial encounter, the way they danced around each other and their attraction, and I liked the way it was cut short because of undeniable duty. The entire scene played out really well for me. When Mischa and Rafe finally got together though, it all felt rushed. Her acceptance of their situation didn’t feel natural, and their lovemaking seemed over before it really started. While I understand this isn’t erotic romance, a little more detail would have been nice.

As for the plot that wove the story together, most of it worked very well. Rafe is bound to the terrorist trying to kill Mischa’s charge. The contrast between the two men was well done and worked for the story. If I had a complaint about that portion of the story it is that, again, the resolution felt rushed.

Overall, I enjoyed The Price of Freedom, but I wish the author would have developed some things a little more. (Including the setting. I wanted to really feel the desert around me. Other people might get that from the book, but I didn’t.) The novella is short, and I don’t think a little more attention to those areas would have made it unwieldy.

Was it the best thing I’ve read lately? No. Will I give something else by the author a chance? Yes.

I give The Price of Freedom 4.0 stars.