Monday, November 16, 2009

Review: A Highlander's Temptation

Ok, I finally finished reading Sue-Ellen Welfonder's A Highlander's Temptation.  I had previously read another of her Highlander books and thought it was wonderful (Seducing a Scottish Bride).  So, naturally, I was greatly looking forward to reading her new book, A Highlander's Temptation had came out in October 2009, but, sadly, I'm dissapointed with it.

Like all Highlander stories, we usually have a hot-blooded, strong warrior and a beautiful wanting woman who are are from different warring clans.  This stands true for this book, which I don't have a problem with.  Actually, I found the first half of the book (the book is 375 pages long)  great.  I thought it was well written and was really liking the characters.  The male lead of the book, Derroc is chief of his clan; a clan with a tattered reputation that he wants to fix to no end.  His love interest is Lady Arabella, Derroc's enemy's daughter who has washed up on his shore after a horrible ship wreck. 

The two naturally fall for one another, but, Derroc, not wanting to get involved with the enemy's daughter, decideds to keep his distance and ignore his desires.  Arabella though is a lonely woman having watched her younger sister get wed and now with a baby on the way, and she wants that for herself.

Now, I already said I really enjoyed the first half of the book.  After that, I feel as if the author had to push herself to finish the book, which sadens me since I loved her other work.  It was as if all of a sudden she thought 'oh wait!  I need a problem for my characters'  so she threw a problem at them, which they easily succeded.  Then it was as if she thought 'oh wait!  This is supposed to be a romance, I need to let my characters have sex', to which point I felt as if her characters were a mix of cavemen and five years olds, creating poetry about making love and beautiful vows, but turning around the next secound to say:
man-'you're mine'
woman- 'oh, yes!'
man- 'I take what's mine'
woman- 'yes, please!'

Then of course, things were going too well, and the book wasn't possibly long enough to send it off to the publishers, so the author had to create yet another problem, this time making Derroc have a moment where he thought everything was fake between them , created by a wooden relic he thought magic, making him send Arabella away to her father before deciding, a whole fours day later, to go after her. 

Of course, everything ended up fine, just a slight, five minute warring with her hated father before she jumped on board her lover's ship and sailed away to go get married back on Derroc's homeland.

Now, I said before that I greatly enjoyed Welfonder's other books, which I have, why this particular bok is such a surprise to me.  I, personally, would not recommend this book to anyone, but Sue-Ellen Welfonder's books in general, not counting this book, I do recommend.  (Just wanted to clear that up because Welfonder  is a wonderful author!)

You can check out Sue-Ellen Welfonder's website, and her other books here:  http://www.welfonder.com/

Until next time,
Happy Reading!

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