Review: A very standard romance--and that's a good thing
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 31, 2013
Once I started this, I raced right through it. It's formulaic but I mean that in a good way, in that readers who like the trials and tangles and tempo of a romance novel should enjoy this... but (warning!) will then be disappointed that it's the first in a trilogy, so there will be a wait for a true ending to the story.The historical details enrich and expand a fairly predictable underlying lineup (earnest, conflicted hero; darkly mysterious love interest; misunderstandings; steamy encounters), and again when I say "predictable" I mean that it works in all the right ways. Instead of simply second-guessing the plot, I never stopped wondering: how will this hero, this unique personality in these particular circumstances, weather the storm?The resolution of one of the conflicts felt a bit strange--I wasn't quite convinced of the imminent danger--but that was a small enough flaw for me to shrug it off and read on. The main character David's personality and his inner conflict are nicely expressed (I'm hoping he remains the POV character in the forthcoming books), and the love interest is the sort of compelling character perfectly created to sweep hero and reader off their feet. Very early in the story I found myself desperately hoping for all the characters to be happy by the end, including the minor ones. For a story that creates that sort of sympathy and works that magic, I'll gladly return for the next volume.