Phoebe Conn

Egan, the heir to chieftain of the Dai Cais, brings home the prophetess Oriana so she can predict the future for his clan from their sacred stones. However, upon arrival at his home he learns of the tragedy that has befallen his family and his people; someone assassinated his father.Egan needs Oriana's help to uncover the identity of the killer. He asks her to pretend to be his mistress; attracted to him, she agrees. However, her mystical skill fails her whenever Egan is nearby because her need for him supersedes her ability to foretell. As they fall in love, they must fight enemies from within and without to protect the Dai Cais people.
I loved the progression the characters made from a partnership to friends and finally into love. The heroine really did everything in her power to protect the hero and though the male was grieving the death of his father he did his best to protect her in return.… (meer)

I hated this book. There I said it. I was expecting a swashbuckling pirate adventure with a sensuous romance, but what I read was a book that often made no sense at all. The main characters are moody, annoying and boring.

The story begins with Mrs. Sarah Hadley, the very pregnant widow of a British officer. The pregnancy twist was certainly a different one for a romance novel; however in this case, the twist fell flat. Sarah makes the dangerous mistake of booking passage on a ship heading to England during the height of the Revolutionary war. As fate would have it, the successful and dashing Captain Christopher MacLeod captures the vessel she is on. Basically, he is just doing his job as a commissioned privateer in the war. Sarah is understandably outraged, but still accuses him of being a deranged pirate, no matter that he treats her with the utmost respect. Christopher’s actions prove that she has no rationale for believing the worst about him. Still, she angrily twists every kind thing he says against him.

Although Christopher is constantly exasperated with her, he offers her marriage and claims to be in love her. He declares his feelings after knowing Sarah only a few days. That made no sense. The reader is expected to believe that because Sarah had an unhappy childhood with her strict preacher father, that she is supposed to be naturally argumentative. That made no sense. Their time together on the ship was simply tiresome to read about. All Sarah did was spew out vicious hatred. There was nothing Christopher could do to placate her. The fact that he kept trying made no sense. Surely he didn't need the aggravation and could have anyone he wanted. If Sarah wasn’t trying to get his crew on her side, she was fretting over Christopher’s success in avoiding capture by the British, or teasing him by kissing him one minute and hating him the next. The writer gave Sarah few if any redeemable qualities.

During a terrible storm, she goes into labor prematurely. Christopher delivers the baby single handedly. She is barely civil or thankful. Even more annoying was the fact that he had to instruct her on how to take care of the infant. Once they finally make it to his beautiful island home, what should have been a wonderful paradise was more of the same, with Sarah’s hot and cold personality.

Eventually he takes Sarah to his parent’s home in Virginia where he drops her off and leaves soon after to fight in the war. His family does not welcome her, which does make sense and was the only highlight in the story. Christopher comes home injured and becomes a miserable patient. Now it’s Sarah’s turn to put up with his surly moods and she can't stand it. These unconvincing characters just barely go through the motions. There is no spark whatsoever. I felt nothing right down to the last page of the book. Nothing!… (meer)