[Sirtel]

I don't usually give book recommendations, because, well, tastes differ. But Melody Daggerhart is a self-published author whose work I recently discovered and I feel she deserves a word of praise, as she seems not to be well known.

The Elf Gate series (6 books so far, of which the last one came out in December) is epic fantasy. It's available from Amazon, Kobo and Smashwords (perhaps elsewhere too, but I didn't check). While the covers (drawn by the author herself) are, to put it mildly, not very attractive (to put it bluntly, IMHO they're pretty awful), the books themselves are very good. I've read all but the last two. Unlike the covers they're not childish at all, and while there's something resembling romance going on between the two main protagonists, they can't be classified as romance. Certainly the main focus is not on that. And the relationship evolves very slowly over the series, there's no insta-love or insta-sex in those books.

The books are proofread and edited, there are no spelling or grammar mistakes that I could spot. Plus the story, while not entirely free of cliches, is not a carbon copy of other fantasy works. It's also long and pretty convoluted, so suitable for those who like to immerse themselves in another world for a while.

All in all, if you're a fantasy fan, I'd suggest to give those books a try. I happened upon the first book entirely by chance, browsing the Amazon website, and my expectations weren't that high. But I was pleasantly surprised.

(I'm also not connected to the author in any way, nor have I received any books in exchange for a review, or some such stuff).