REVIEW: The Crimson Outlaw by Alex Beecroft!

Love is the greatest outlaw of all.

"Vali Florescu, heir to a powerful local boyar, flees his father’s cruelty to seek his fortune in the untamed Carpathian forests. There he expects to fight ferocious bandits and woo fair maidens to prove himself worthy of returning to depose his tyrannical father. But when he is ambushed by Mihai Roscat, the fearsome Crimson Outlaw, he discovers that he’s surprisingly happy to be captured and debauched instead.

Mihai, once an honoured knight, has long sought revenge against Vali’s father, Wadim, who killed his lord and forced him into a life of banditry. Expecting his hostage to be a resentful, spoiled brat, Mihai is unprepared for the boy to switch loyalties, saving the lives of villagers and of Mihai himself during one of Wadim’s raids. Mihai is equally unprepared for the attraction between them to deepen into love.

Vali soon learns that life outside the castle is not the fairy tale he thought, and happy endings must be earned. To free themselves and their people from Wadim’s oppression, Vali and Mihai must forge their love into the spear-point of a revolution and fight for a better world for all."

While a tad short, The Crimson Outlaw tells the story of Mihai and Vali and their eventual run into each other that leads to love.

Mihai is the Crimson Outlaw who Vali is captured by and though they are on opposite sides, Vali eventually see honor and goodness in Mihai while Mihai eventually sees that Vali is not a spoiled brat, but is in fact very brave.

Mihai is was knight who wants justice and he does whatever he needs to get that justice against Vali's evil and abusive father. Vali's father is a bad man, but Vali is innocent and too kind of a soul to fully grasp the evil in his father, but once he realizes that his nice little world is not so nice, he joins Mihai to set things right.

Mihai and Vali's romance while nice and enjoyable was somewhat too fast, but I guess that was because the length of the book. I felt the book could have used about 130 more pages or so, to fully flesh out the world and the characters and make me feel more invested in the world and their lives.

That being said, The Crimson Outlaw was good read that I would not mind seeing a sequel to and I def recommend other people checking it out!

-Atlas