Evermore by Lynn Viehl

Aedan MacByrne is Darkyn, and rules the fief known as "The Realm", located in Florida. The Realm is actually more of a theme park along the lines of Medieval Times, where guests come to see Darkyn knights joust and show off medival skills like swordplay as they eat a medieval-style feast. But when the Realm shuts down for the year, Aedan holds a tourney for the other Darkyn, And the one who is his seneschal is Jayr, a woman.

Jayr might be female, and Darkyn, but she appears more like a boy than a girl because she was starved for most of her young life and never went through puberty. When Aedan was lured into a staked pit trap and dying, she freed him and gave him her blood to help him survive. It was also her first and only experience with sex- oral sex with Byrne. Still, his kiss turned her into a Darkyn, and eventually, she became his seneschal.

But Byrne is too caring of Jayr to take her for his lover and thus undermine her authority with his household. Jayr, for her part, loves Byrne hopelessly and will not push him for a relationship. Because she looks more like a young man than a woman, she fears that Byrne, who has shown a marked preference for busty, lusty young women, isn't really interested in her because of her lack of bosom and male appearance.

But Byrne has decided to step down as ruler of the Realm, and wants Michael Cyprien to appoint a new ruler over the Realm. Aedan was a brutal warrior, and is afraid that his current life of peace is becoming too irksome. Eventually, he will lose control of his temper and do something he will regret, possibly something murderous. With all of the Darkyn being run off their estates in Europe, surely there is someone fit to rule the Realm in his place.

The Kyn arrive, but someone is stirring up trouble, because someone requested hangings in the colors of Nottingham, Robin of Locksley's old colors that were stripped from him when his lands and titles were taken away by the King who banished him. The Darkyn who requested those colors presents himself as Ganelon of Florence, Lord of Nottingham, related to Guy of Guisburne, who was long ago killed by Robin of Locksley after precipitating the jardin war and slaughtering the families of many of the jardin who served other lords. But nobody among the Darkyn trusts this new Lord, who has power over ice and cold, because he is served by Saracens who are also Darkyn, and most Darkyn were Templars fighting against the Saracens when they were cursed with their condition.

But along with the rest of the Kyn come Michael Cyprien and his Sygkenis, Alexandra Keller. Jayr, knowing of Alexandra's ability with medicine, wants to leave her mannish body behind and hopes that Alex can help her become more like a woman. And though she wouldn't be able to admit it, not even to herself, she wants to be able to appeal to Byrne as a women would.

But Alexandra's injections making her body go through puberty also bring changes that Jayr finds frightening. Her emotions seem supercharged, and her body's longings become so strong that they scare her. And all the while, someone in the tournament of Darkyn wishes to kill Aedan, and Jayr as well, since she guards the life of her lord as his third arm and blade. How will Jayr feel when she finds out what Aedan plans, and how will she deal with her love for him, her longing for a relationship, and her fear of that very same thing? Can Jayr, with her talent for moving so swiftly that her hair sometimes actually catches on fire, move fast enough to prevent a tragedy from ocurring in the Realm she loves so much, and protect the Lord she loves more than life?

I really enjoyed this book, because we finally got to see what the life of a female Darkyn was actually like. Jayr is not the usual sort of Darkyn female, because she lives her life as close as possible to what a male Darkyn is like as it is possible for her to be, but she more than holds her own when it comes to excelling at the same things that the Darkyn men around her do.

Her problem is that, while many take her for being a man, something she finds troubling, she still has a woman's heart, and has long been in love with Aedan, the man she believes made her a Darkyn. In the end, she turns out to be wrong, and her true parentage isn't known until the end of the book, but even if one said that her parentage went a long way to providing a reason why she was so good at male pursuits, she's still heroic for choosing the direction of her life.

In the past, Jayr may have had no chance to make changes to her life, but Alex Keller's bringing of modern medicine into the world of the Darkyn allows Jayr to choose a path that she wants for herself, and her growth as a character and a woman is the impetus for an even greater change among the Darkyn and the people of the Realm.

I also laughed out loud at a few points in this story, especially when Alex and Jayr are discussing the changes that Alex's shot is causing in Jayr's body. Because in addition to the physical changes she wants, she must also go through the emotional rollercoaster of adolescence and the discovery of her body's new wants and needs, all of which she finds very insistent after so long without them. The phrase "Your body has discovered that it's seventeen and is now throwing a party" and the image of the "Hormone fairy" inspired guffaws and made me smile.

The end of the book is the best, where Jayr is awarded Lordship of the Realm, the first Darkyn female to ever be made Lord, and Aedan becomes her Seneschal, as well as her lover. Looking back at how far Jayr has come from the beginning of the book made me feel heartwarmed, and the amusing conversations between Jayr and Alexandra Keller made it a delight to read. Highly recommended, and I'd call this one the best in the series so far.