Sasha Lord

Shipwrecked in a bad storm, the hero finds himself stranded on an island populated with only horses and the heroine and her grandmother. The heroine is blind and has developed a magical talent that allows her to feel the life force of creatures around her. She's independent, self sufficient but naïve. Also, she's only sixteen years old. I know that this fact will put some people off but keep in mind it's an historical romance. Also this is not a young adult novel either. When her show more grandmother dies, the hero is forced to kidnap her in a bid to keep her safe while he tries to gain the island legally from the King. I think he did have the best intentions when he did this but it really did screw everything up. He's a man of his times, so he can't comprehend that a woman is able to survive without a male's protection. But the heroine has been raised on an island with only her elderly grandmother so she's perfectly able to protect herself. In kidnapping her, the hero loses her love and it takes sometime for hero to forgive him. On top of that, the KING (who truly is a royal asshole) denies his plea for the island and instead offers it up as a prize in a horse race. The hero went from being a sort of nice guy, albeit selfish and close minded, to being hated by the woman he loves. In was a lovely book with very in depth characters who you both love and dislike equally throughout the book. You will hate the hero when he takes the heroine from her home against her will, but you'll love him in his attempt to win her back. Just enough to make it a paranormal-ish book but defiantly more historical romance than anything. show less

Since childhood the heroine has dreamt of the boy who started out as her friend, and then later on of the man who is destined to be her soul mate. She has turned away any suitors she may have had and has waited 10 long years in anticipation of this man coming to find her so they could be together. But he's never come. And now she's plagued with dreams of the future, seeing her soul mate in danger-needing her help. She must go to him. So she hides her fiery red hair-ashamed of the colour and show more the fact that it marks her as evil- she paints her face to hide the freckles and she convinces her half sister to take her to the city to find him. There she meets the hero. The man is arrogant, pigheaded and so not the man she seeks. But everyway she goes she seems to run into this man until one day she sees the scar on his hand and is astonished by the realization that he is the man she seeks-the man meant to be her husband. She proclaims to him that he is meant to be hers, that she's dreamt of him and loves him and that they are destined for each other. The hero in turn is repelled at first by this young child's uncouth declaration. He wants nothing at all to do with the odd and unsofiticated girl who practically throws herself at him. He is the son of a man who defied the king and married a peasant woman for love in turn spurning a well connected family and casting shame on his family name. Then his father killed himself when his beloved wife died leaving his son to live in a shadow of such a scandal. Now the hero lives only for one purpose-regaining his title and marrying the daughter of a gentleman to right the wrongs his father committed. He doesn't believe in love or any such nonsense yet despite the bizaare personality of the young woman he turns away, he feels a connection to her. He is possessive of her, jealous of the idea of her with any other man. But he makes it clear he will never marry her. Distraught over the rejection and ashamed of the way she's behaved the heroine wants to leave. Then she meets the hero one night without her disguise. Thinking her to be the heroines sister, the hero is overcome by his desire for the beautiful red head and they sleep together. Then they enter into an affair, he not knowing who she truly is and she not wanting to tell him as this is the only way she can be with him- to protect him. He regains his title and the next step is to marry the right woman but suddenly the idea of a cold emotionless marriage doesn't sit right with him. He is instead rather torn between the overwhelming desire he feels for his Tiger or as he calls her- and the heroine whom he feels companionship with. All of this finally comes to a head when he is attacked and saved by his tiger woman who soon reveals herself to be the heroine. At first hurt by her betrayal and then smart enough to realize that his two desires have turned into one woman, he takes her back to his castle. There, while trying to convince her of his love for her, they must figure out who murdered his father and who in turn is looking to murder him as well. I feel so torn about this book. On one hand this story is everything that gives the historical romance genre a bad rep. It is overly dramatic, filled with pointless declarations of who fine thy eye are and rather stupid characters. The author jumped POV's quite frequently and often broke the setting with modern phrases. Yet at the same time there was something about it that drew me in. Maybe I'm just a sap for historical romance in generally and though it was full of eye roll induced scenes, I did find myself enjoying the book overall. I can say that the characters were constantly flip flopping emotions and I was quite lost as to where each of them stood but there were funny moments and the dialogue could be witty and charming at times. That being said, I can 100% understand those who think this book was insufficient because there characters were at times unlikable (mostly the hero who basically had 2 woman on the go and couldn't decide whom to love). But I felt a 3 star rating was fair and can say that I liked it well enough. show less

Matalia is the spoiled, cloistered daughter of Laird Ronin McTaver and the forest kingdom princess, Kalial. Determined to rebel against her parents' plans to marry her off respectably she decides she wants to know what the secrets of what goes on behind the marriage doors are without the commitment. In keeping with this she shanghais the captured prisoner of bandits on her property and decides to keep him as an experiment and teacher of the ways of men and woman. What she doesn't realize is show more that the traveler she is keeping is actually lord and warrior Brogan O'Bannon on his way back to wrest his kingdom from the hands of his twin brother.

I have to say that I came very close to putting this book down (or throwing it across the room) after the first few chapters. I certainly cannot condone how these two people treated each other at all in the beginning, as it really amounted to rape on both their parts. Additionally keeping in mind Matalia's supposed to be about 16 years old just made it worse. I know that in the historical context 16 was of marriageable age but I'm still not thrilled with it. Getting past all that was difficult but I did it because I kept thinking the story would get better, and it did for the most part. I did like Matalia's relationship with her wolves and even grew to like her a little bit as the story went on. I also liked the connection between Brogan and his twin brother, Xanthier, despite their warring against each other. The bedroom scenes were about as steamy as what I consider the norm for this type of novel, not too tame, not too graphic. I found the last third of the book the most interesting part and believe it was worth going through the rest of it to get there.

I think this is an okay highlander romance that might be of interest to those who enjoyed the relationship between Clare and Jamie in Outlander. show less

The heroine's a naval Robin Hood, who's asked her cousin, a famed warrior, to help her get back Something an outlaw took from her.

But the cousin wants to stay in a monastery for 2 more months, so he sends another warrior in his place, and when he arrives, she thinks it's her cousin.

She's both too good to be true and occasionally TSTL (too stupid to live).

It doesn't bother him to sleep with her under an assumed name, but when it comes to saving her life, he's just too honest to lie about show more his name, which really made me want to *smack* him upside the head.

I liked the previous books in this series much better, and will probably check out future ones. show less