Only Love is Deathless by Sita Bethel is an erotic fantasy romance novel following Sreka and Košmar as they embark on a grand adventure that starts with a plan for a faux courtship and marriage so that Sreka's younger brother could wed the love of his life.
This story drew me in quick. What was originally supposed to be a small read before bed became a full day binge for me. The fantasy elements were amazing along with the world that the writer had created. The pacing felt believable and the relationships were all quite charming and endearing. There wasn't a character, aside from the villain naturally, that I found myself disliking. While the story ended a bit sooner than I would have liked, it felt complete. It's worth a re-read.

Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to read it before being archived so I can not say anything about it.
Therefore, I'm gonna give it the average rating here - 4 stars

I'll admit I'm a sucker for medieval fantasy so I started out biased. As much as I loved the characters and story, there were definitely a few issues. The sham marriage plot was practically ignored after the first chapter. There was none of the sexual tension, pining, slowly growing affection kind of thing that you normally expect. Would have been improved immensely by more character growth, but it did read like a fairy tale and those aren't much known for their in-depth characters.

I know, 3 stars out of 5 seems a bit harsh, but let me explain...

The basic premise of Only Love is Deathless is that our two protagonists meet in a small wayside inn, that much-used venue for fantasy novels, where one suggests to the other that they make a deal. Košmar is living hand-to-mouth, so when Prince Sreka suggests that he get involved in a fake marriage so that Sreka's little brother can get married to the woman he loves, he figures he has nothing to lose. Sreka's plan is to fake a meeting, then a whirlwind romance, followed by a quiet divorce after 12 months of marriage. So far, so good and hitting all the buttons that made me request the book in the first place.

One complicating factor, which Košmar has failed to mention early on, is that he's the son of both a local hero and a supernatural creature - in this case, a nightmare, which basically works the same way as an incubus but without the sexual element. As a result, after their attempted meet-cute involving what was supposed to be a fictional dragon turns horribly real, he suggests to Sreka that he's better off on the couch and that Sreka ought to take out some magical protection against him.

Where things started to go wrong for me with this book were when the marriage of convenience plot-line fell by the wayside alarmingly early on through the book. One of the attracting qualities of this kind of plot is sexual tension and suddenly there was none, just lots of sex scenes which were all pretty similar to one another. That must be a very spacious couch and hopefully also easy to clean for the poor servants!

Since the book is also set in faux-Eastern Europe (complete with pysanki, babka and who knows what else), there's a generous mining of the folklore of that area to have Koschei the Deathless as the big bad of the story, suddenly kidnapping said much-loved younger prince. Even though he's now king, Sreka and Košmar set off to the rescue, making time of course for more sex as they go.

So, two problems for me: I felt like I got hit with a bait-and-switch as the promised plot-line got resolved way too early on and with zero consequences/impact. Then there's the whole lack of character development for both Košmar and Sreka - I'm very much a believer that everything going on should help the reader see the character more clearly, sex scenes included, and I found myself fast forwarding through those in search of more plot. Overall, it's a pleasant enough story but nothing outstanding - there could have been so much more done with many of the elements concerned if the author hadn't been so focussed on how often they could bone.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

The story in Only Love is Deathless jumps into the action right away, with a prince coming to an agreement with a thief that they will get married, but it will be a fake marriage and only for a year. This will allow the prince's younger brother to marry his true love, because the rules of the land dictate that a younger member of royalty cannot marry until their older sibling does.

From the start, nothing goes as planned. The fake dragon the thief (who has magic) was supposed to conjure up so he and the prince could "meet" by dramatically battling the beast together, is actually a real one sent by someone unknown (but clearly evil), and the thief gets badly injured. Cue the prince and the thief pretty adorably falling in love with each other while the thief convalesces.

From there, the story essentially follows this format. Sweet love story, lots of battles with mythical creatures, a quest, and some highly dramatic tragedies. Just a note that there are quite a few explicit "strong sexual content" (as the movie rating system would say) scenes in this book. I know some people prefer to skip the erotica, so just a heads up there. The scenes start out well-written, demonstrating the love between the two characters, but then there are so many of those scenes, and they are written so similarly, that it just becomes very repetitive. Some variety in writing style would have helped there I think. But it's an enjoyable read with some sweet romance and a lot of page-turning drama, and flew by pretty quickly.

This is a proper mediaeval fairy tale reminiscent of Camelot times with magic and fearsome beasts threaded together with a tale of true love rising unexpectedly from a deal for a fake wedding. Exciting and scary I loved this story from beginning to end. Sita Bethel seems to specialise in intense love stories set in an unexpected setting., definitely not boring. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.