Gena Showalter's Rise of the Warlords series continues with "The Immortal." If you want to gain a full understanding of the world and the larger story at play here, I recommend reading the first book in the series, The Warlord, as much of the set-up for the series is explained there. But as briefly as possible, there's a group of 9 super-duper-immortal beings called the Astra Planeta, led by Roc (book one's hero), who each have to complete a ritual/task/quest thingy in order to achieve 6 more weeks of winter 500 more years of success on the battlefield. If they fail, they are cursed with 500 years of loss.

And wouldn't you know it, each one's task is derailed by the appearance of their fated female, and the warriors have to somehow find a way to keep their girl but also complete their task because if even one of the Astras fails to complete theirs, everyone automatically fails!

So no pressure.

I really liked Halo and Ophelia as a couple, and the storyline of the repeating day and the 12 Herculean challenges was super fun. I liked Ophelia's banter mixed with Halo's stoicism. Like day and night, hot and cold - it was funny.

And of course, with Ophelia being half nymph it didn't take long for her to warm Halo up!

Overall, this was really enjoyable. I maybe wouldn't recommend reading two of these books directly back-to-back like I did as you definitely notice the formula more starkly, but I'm interested to read the rest and see how the other 7 Astras each find their fated female.⁠
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I'm going to give this one 4 stars. ⁠
★★★★
ARC was received by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.