Official Review: Lynna's Rogue by Kitty Margo
Posted: 21 Feb 2013, 18:13
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Lynna's Rogue" by Kitty Margo.]
This is a historical romance about an heiress who is forced to leave France and travel to the Americas to live with her aunt. She is escorted overseas by a dashing sea captain, Captain Joshua Jordan, and sparks fly immediately. One huge misunderstanding and some hurt feelings later, they leave the ship bitter enemies, but fate has other ideas and throws them together again a few years down the road. Again, a big misunderstanding gets the best of their budding relationship and we get to see how they work out their differences amongst even more adventure.
This book was very hard for me to rate. I'm a sucker for a good-old-fashioned romance novel and this book had some very high points, but there were a couple of things that bothered me. First of all, I felt like a little of the romance was missing, at least on the hero's part. It was more like he was in deep, desperate lust with the heroin, and we almost got the feeling that he thought he owned her. He never seems as emotionally involved as she is. Also, in the beginning of the book he is portrayed as this exceedingly respectable gentleman with a pristine reputation, a man who could be trusted above all others, but I didn't see that anywhere in the rest of the story. He truly is a rogue. He takes advantage of Lynna when he knows she's a naive innocent, and then after that he seems to think she's just his for the taking no matter what she has to say about it. He's also very friendly with the ladies, if you know what I mean. I think plenty of drama and tension could've been developed without him spreading the love all around the state.
Contrary to what you might think at this point, I did like the book quite a bit. I really liked Lynna as a heroin. She started out as a green girl and we got to watch her grow throughout the book. I liked all of the adventures she experiences and the fact that she doesn't really have many "oh, woe is me" moments. She was a strong female lead. I also enjoyed the Cinderella/Evil Stepsister relationship between Lynna and Suzanne. Lynna has her secrets and we know the truth of them, but Suzanne goes merrily along making an idiot of herself. I also loved the fact that Suzanne was a character that I could hate and not feel at all guilty about doing so. Finally, I felt a lot of the scenes were very lush and descriptive. I could really see the rolling green estates of the plantations and the tropical island paradise.
I am rating this book at 3 out of 4 stars because I truly liked the book overall; I just didn't really care for the hero, essentially. Lynna was a very strong, likeable main character and the story had lots of adventure. The writing was very vivid and I enjoyed the world building a lot. I just thought that Lynna deserved better than Captain Joshua Jordan.
***
Buy "Lynna's Rogue" on Amazon
This is a historical romance about an heiress who is forced to leave France and travel to the Americas to live with her aunt. She is escorted overseas by a dashing sea captain, Captain Joshua Jordan, and sparks fly immediately. One huge misunderstanding and some hurt feelings later, they leave the ship bitter enemies, but fate has other ideas and throws them together again a few years down the road. Again, a big misunderstanding gets the best of their budding relationship and we get to see how they work out their differences amongst even more adventure.
This book was very hard for me to rate. I'm a sucker for a good-old-fashioned romance novel and this book had some very high points, but there were a couple of things that bothered me. First of all, I felt like a little of the romance was missing, at least on the hero's part. It was more like he was in deep, desperate lust with the heroin, and we almost got the feeling that he thought he owned her. He never seems as emotionally involved as she is. Also, in the beginning of the book he is portrayed as this exceedingly respectable gentleman with a pristine reputation, a man who could be trusted above all others, but I didn't see that anywhere in the rest of the story. He truly is a rogue. He takes advantage of Lynna when he knows she's a naive innocent, and then after that he seems to think she's just his for the taking no matter what she has to say about it. He's also very friendly with the ladies, if you know what I mean. I think plenty of drama and tension could've been developed without him spreading the love all around the state.
Contrary to what you might think at this point, I did like the book quite a bit. I really liked Lynna as a heroin. She started out as a green girl and we got to watch her grow throughout the book. I liked all of the adventures she experiences and the fact that she doesn't really have many "oh, woe is me" moments. She was a strong female lead. I also enjoyed the Cinderella/Evil Stepsister relationship between Lynna and Suzanne. Lynna has her secrets and we know the truth of them, but Suzanne goes merrily along making an idiot of herself. I also loved the fact that Suzanne was a character that I could hate and not feel at all guilty about doing so. Finally, I felt a lot of the scenes were very lush and descriptive. I could really see the rolling green estates of the plantations and the tropical island paradise.
I am rating this book at 3 out of 4 stars because I truly liked the book overall; I just didn't really care for the hero, essentially. Lynna was a very strong, likeable main character and the story had lots of adventure. The writing was very vivid and I enjoyed the world building a lot. I just thought that Lynna deserved better than Captain Joshua Jordan.
***
Buy "Lynna's Rogue" on Amazon