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Currents of power dance through Ephemera, this living, ever-changing world. Some of those currents are Light, and some are Dark. Two halves of a whole. Nothing has one without some measure of the other.
That is the way of things.
And there is no vessel for focusing the Light and the Dark that can compare to the human heart.
How do we tell people, who are still shaken by the horrors the Eater of the World set free in Ephemera, that this thing they fear cannot be destroyed completely because It was manifested from the darkest desires of their own hearts? How can we tell them they planted the seeds of this war that shattered the world? How can we tell them it was their own despair during this fearsome time that changed rich farmland into deserts? How can we tell them that, even with our guidance and intervention, the link between Ephemera and the human heart is unbreakable, and the world around them is nothing more or less than a reflection of themselves?
We can't tell them—because, despite the dangers that exist within it, the human heart is our only hope of restoring Ephemera someday. Nor can we let people completely deny the part they play in the constant shaping and reshaping of this world.
So we will teach them this warning: Let your heart travel lightly. Because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape.
� The Lost Archives

Anne Bishop seems to be a fairly polarizing author, but I happen to be a fan of her particular brand of saccharine wish-fulfillment fantasy. Sue me. I love the angsty bad boy that's not actually a bad boy at all. I love the intricately worlds Bishop imagines, so different from our own but for that fragile undercurrent of humanity. I get cavities from all of it, but it doesn't make me love it less.

I will say, however, that this was not a romance. This was a fantasy novel where one of the characters happens to be an incubus pining for love. There are no overly explicit sex scenes, and despite the fact that many scenes take place in land literally named the Den of Iniquity, nothing overly crass or disgusting happens.