Review: Great Book, Minor Complaints but I WILL Be Getting The Next One
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2013
Note: Writing a review in the middle of two books of this series may be hard for the reader and the reviews will most likely by necessity be somewhat similar. Spoilers in reviews of books 2-3-4 will be kept to a minimum. Now with all the excuses out of the way.........The writing was good, the story was good, the setting was good, and the hero Gabhran MacLachlan was a bit of a mixture of a jerk, gentleman, and creep due to some evil spell. The secondary characters are done well, and as with book one Ms. Harner introduced one of them late in the book to be used for the main character in book three, which seems to be the writing style this author uses. The heroine Detective Miranda Close, was somewhat interesting but the background for her was poor, bordering on "Mary Sue." More on that in a minute.This is a novel of love, betrayal, and complications that make your head swim. I mean this is the writer's kitchen sink here. We have PNR/UF/thriller/VooDoo/Highland historical/Druids/21st Century New Orleans/14th Century Scotland, etc. I was hoping for a slice of Alabama just to make me feel at home.Here is why I was unhappy with the author's portrayal of our heroine. I have seen too many novels where the heroine is a supposedly a cop/detective/etc and tough as nails. The author spends the great majority of this novel making her look like the ultimate damsel in distress. If this is what you wish to do, then make it more realistic by making her a clerk, secretary, car salesman, CEO, but if you are going to write her as a weepy female trying to figure out what she is going to do for most of the book, then don't try to sell me on her being a cop/detective/etc. If you just take the author's picture of her as a tough cop and place it in your mental garbage heap, you will do just fine in this excellent story because the image does not fit at all. Part of the definition for a "Mary Sue" character is this "youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy." In this book the quote is "youngest detective in the history of the NOPD" so you can see the rub. It just does not fit. She does have a temper though!The main plot, in addition to the overarching plot, is trying to find out why Gabh seems to have no past. However, he and Miranda get this figured out, so the overarching Druid plot takes precedence. There is a bit of time travel, for lack of a better term, since temporal displacement sounds so Star Trek. The down side of that is that the hero has no memory of the previous time, but the heroine does. This makes for some good times and bad times, so just let me say that 14th century Scotland was not the best time for women's rights.I believe fictional books should be about the story, and I am aware that Paranormal Romance is full of a lot of sex, BUT this author has used excessive pages to describe in excruciating detail the many, many, many times. When this red blooded, heterosexual Southern boy is so tired of reading your sexual descriptions that I scan your sex scene so I can get back to the story the chances are very high you have written too many sex scenes. Obviously, the above is a matter of taste but I felt the author needed more faith in her wonderful story, my 2 cents on that.I should point out, in spite of my comments, this is a great story which I enjoyed. The third book is set up well with characters you have already met and feel comfortable with, leaving you anticipating what happens next. There is an overarching storyline for all these books concerning the "dark and light" druids and there is going to be some epic battle in the future books somewhere I am sure. I am looking forward to it, to be honest.So all things considered, and the fact that I am looking forward to the next book; this is a solid 4 Star reading experience. If you were feeling especially sexually deprived before reading this, maybe you rate it higher.Reviewed by:  Douglas C. MeeksMember of the Paranormal Romance Review Team