I'll be honest with you :

I'm a jaded romance reader.

But Sea Fires reminds me where the love of the genre springs from in hearts everywhere.

Surprisingly filled with great humor, I didn't expect to chuckle, and even on one occasion laugh so loud and long by son started interrogating me. Dorsey clearly has a great sense of humor that's a refreshing change. I grew tired of the heroine's overly inquisitive mind at times, but Captain Jack's almost continuous exclamation, God's Blood!, made my cheeks sore from grinning. The man's impatience was hysterical, this was clearly a man who has as bad of luck as I do.

Not that it was constant giggles, though. The backstory is a pretty gruesome, cold one, if not stereotypical. The man wishes to avenge his slain family. How often had we heard that before? Still, the heroine Miranda was refreshing. She had never even thought of marriage and kiddies, raised by a grandfather enamored by science and exploration. Raised as an intellect and never being exposed to fancy balls or parties, she instead was hooked on her microscope, a device she paranoidly accused everyone of trying to steal from chapter one.

When the pirates of the ship become enthused in their backwards way with the little 'animals that float in the water' they drink, good times roll. Her approach may have been overdone sometimes to the point where it wore thin, but she was still a great character because she - and her background - were so different. Her mother was dead and her father left them, but she sought him out when her grandfather passed on. Independent and strong, not weighed down or the least concerned with modern day (then) society, she innocently ventures forth into one disaster after another.

Sex wise, clothes fly off pretty early on. She doesn't have the typical reaction by far the encounter of, how she points it, fornication. It even grew annoying at times but the romantic scenes were sensually written. They weren't so hot your socks melted off, or even where the heart beat changed much, but they were enough.

Thankfully her beauty is not gushed over, and instead we get the impression she may be a bit plain, and that beauty is in the eye of beholder. Jack never sits and stares at her doe-y eyes all day, thank God! The story is complex for this sort, with the father Henry helping Jack and Miranda get into trouble every step of the way. Sure the ending is a little predictable, but with this kind of novel who cares? We always know the romance flourishes and the heroine/hero wins, that's what we read it for.

Written back in 92, it's one of the better historicals I've read in the past few years. It's a re-read for me, where I forgot the point to where it's absurd (my memory's really that faulty, folks), but I'm glad I revisited it, and it's certainly earned a life on my shelves. I'm curious to read more of this authors' work. ( )