Mary Wine
Autore di To Conquer a Highlander
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: via Goodreads
Serie
Opere di Mary Wine
Improper Seduction Bundle with In the Warrior's Bed, Bedding the Enemy, & In Bed with A Stranger (2011) 8 copie
Improper Pursuits 2 copie
Improper Longings 1 copia
Improper Lessons 1 copia
Opere correlate
Once Upon a Haunted Romance — Collaboratore — 7 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Altri nomi
- Ryder, Dawn (pseudonym for erotic romance)
- Data di nascita
- 20th century
- Sesso
- female
Utenti
Recensioni
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 85
- Opere correlate
- 5
- Utenti
- 1,867
- Popolarità
- #13,787
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 117
- ISBN
- 170
- Lingue
- 2
- Preferito da
- 3
Shannon’s father has no kindness or respect for her, instead physically and emotionally abusing her and treating her like little more than a servant in her own home. When he attacks the McLerens, she believes he’s made a grave error, but saying so only gets her struck in the face for her audacity to speak. However, seeing an opportunity to solidify his alliance with the Earl of Atholl, McBoyd sends Shannon as a bride for the man he hopes will become king. Along the way, they’re attacked and Torin captures her as his prize, taking her back to his castle. Some of the McLerens view her as an enemy, but although she didn’t expect it from him, Torin treats her well. As she bravely takes on whatever tasks are put before her to do, she begins to earn the respect of some of the people in the castle as well. Although her father strictly guarded her virginity, viewing it as the only thing about her that was valuable to him, Shannon sometimes overheard other women talking of being bedded and has wondered what it might be like. The more time she spends around Torin, the more he tempts her. Knowing that even if she were ever returned to her father’s keep, he’d simply assume she’d been raped, she views it as an opportunity to satisfy her curiosity when Torin expresses an interest in her as well. Soon she discovers just how pleasurable the act can be, and although he begins to speak of marriage, she’s simply enjoying being Torin’s mistress, believing that nothing more can feasibly come from their relationship. In the back of her mind, she knows that her father will likely soon be executed for his role in the attempted coup and fears that she may be put to death alongside him.
Shannon is a real spitfire, who bravely stand up for herself. She has a backbone and isn’t afraid of hard work when she’s given tasks to complete around Torin’s castle. On the downside, as someone who’d clearly been abused by her father, she showed no real ill effects from it. I felt like she could have been a good tortured heroine, but nothing like that ever materialized in her characterization. However, she’s also very stubborn, which can sometime serve her well, such as when she courageously stands up to the king’s proxy in the face of possible execution, but other times it became a tad annoying. Even though Torin clearly treats her far better than her father ever did, in the beginning, she still talks of returning to her father’s lands as something she must do. As she grows closer to Torin, those protestations dissipate, but she still fights him on other things, including right up until the end, refusing to become his wife. I admit that her actions in that moment were rather selfless, with her thinking that he could better unify his clan by taking someone else as his bride who wasn’t viewed by some as a traitor, but it still put a small damper on the connection between them to have her still pushing back that late in the story.
Torin grew up not expecting to become laird of his clan. The author explained why this was, but I think she left out a few pertinent details, because despite rereading the passage, I struggled to understand the exact reason. All I know is that part of it had something to do with his father rejecting the bride who was chosen for him and instead marrying for love. His parents are now gone, and no mention is made of any other close family members such as siblings, only a cousin who seems to think he has some claim to the lairdship and uses Torin’s relationship with Shannon to try to elevate his own cause. In any case, having grown up with parents who loved each other very much, Torin is searching for that same kind of love with the woman he marries. Over the years, he’s had some mistresses, but I like that he’s a one-woman kind of guy who gives whatever woman he’s with at the time his full attention. Unlike other Highland lairds, he has no interest in having multiple women at his beck and call or siring bastards like crazy. In fact, many think him sterile because he has no known illegitimate children. Torin is an honorable man who treats women with respect and shows Shannon that same kindness. He’s sort of a mix of alpha and beta, having that Highlander arrogance, but still showing a softer side and not shying away from falling in love and expressing his emotions. I couldn’t help feeling that Torin was somewhat underdeveloped, though, with what I’ve mentioned here pretty much being the full extent of his characterization. We get very few scenes from his POV and those that are present tend to be rather short, so the reader isn’t really privy to much of what he’s thinking throughout the story. Most of what we learn about him comes from Shannon’s observations more like what you might see in a story written in first-person perspective. For as well as I got to know him, though, I did really like him.
Overall, I’d say that I liked To Conquer a Highlander, but I didn’t love it the way I wanted to. It got off to a great start with some action as Torin’s clan is attacked and he later retaliates by kidnapping Shannon. Once they’re back at Donan Tower, though, things slowed considerably. The ending was also reasonably exciting with Shannon being taken to court without Torin’s knowledge and a little suspense around the question of whether she’d be sentenced to die alongside her father. However, that middle section pretty much only consists of Shannon’s lustful thoughts about Torin and eventually lots of steamy sex when he decides to claim her. This book isn’t billed as an erotic romance, nor do I think that it qualifies in the traditional sense (there’s nothing kinky or anything, just lots of steam), but the author does seem to focus an inordinate amount of page time on either sexual thoughts or actual sex. Unfortunately this was IMHO to the detriment of the storytelling. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my romances steamy and I can also enjoy a good erotic romance, too, but when I go into reading a book with the expectation of a strong plot and get mostly sex, I simply have to call it out. There were missed opportunities aplenty to deepen both the plot and the characterizations. The story wasn’t bad, but I just couldn’t help feeling that it could have been a whole lot more. In fact, I struggled with how to rate it. Shannon’s stubbornness aside, she and Torin were pretty good characters and I thought they were well-matched. They also share a couple of romantic interludes outside the bedroom that were nice and even though I thought there was a little too much sex, those scenes were pretty well written. Because of this, I toyed with giving the book a four-star rating, but in the end, given it’s many weaknesses, I felt I had to downgrade it a little.
The next two books in the series are about Torin’s friends, Cameron and Quinton. I’m not quite sure what to make of both men laying kisses on Shannon in front of Torin without permission from either one. I guess it was some kind of odd tradition maybe [shrug], although Cameron also kissed her much earlier in a somewhat predatory manner that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. He said it was just to test her reaction to make sure she was worthy of his friend, so I guess perhaps I can let it slide. However, in the moment I wasn’t entirely sure if he was meant to be friend or foe, which was a little disconcerting, especially now knowing that he’s the hero of the next book. I’m open to continuing the series at some point, but given that this book wasn’t a huge winner for me and Cameron’s is next, it’s not going to be at the top of my list.… (altro)