An emotional
Medieval Irish romance: nice twist on the classic Tristan-Iseult tale.
Iseult
MacFergus can't help but notice the bruised but ever so handsome
body of the new slave. Engaged to the Irish chieftain Davin O Falvey,
her heart feels dead, unable to love. Davin is kind and generous but
something is missing in her heart. Has her past made her incapable of
feeling love? When Davin assigns Keiran a work task that forces Iseult
and Keiran in close proximity, Iseult is determined to have nothing to
do with this man and yet his sense of honor and inner nobility
challenges her. His ability to work wood shows that he has the heart of
an artist as well as the spirit of a warrior. Will he see within her
and capture her spirit? Can Keiran bring her the one thing no one else
can? Can Iseult heal this warrior's hurt, an inner wound that enslaves
him more than his captivity?
Michelle
Willingham's Irish medieval romance HER
WARRIOR SLAVE
grabs and does not let go. The initial conflict between Keiran and
Iseult is punctuated with vivid emotion and dialog as the simplest
words and gestures both set up an opposition and also pull the hero and
heroine together. As Davin reacts to Keiran and Iseult, the reader
feels the growing tension and suspense, wondering how Keiran and Iseult
can ever manage to break through their stations, duties and the past to
get together. The portrait of Keiran sculpting is superb ---
suspenseful and emotional while also showing the depth of the hero and
heroine. The relationship between Davin and Iseult is one of the
highlights of this romance. The reader feels both his adoration of
Iseult and his inability to connect to her deepest desires. Too often
authors, romance has a a tendency to make a character like Davin a
truly bad guy through and through just to make the relationship between
Iseult and Keiran "right". What I truly loved about this romance is how
Michelle Willingham did not succumb to that black and white character
portrayal but instead shows Davin's strengths and weaknesses, his
goodness and his weaknesses. Michelle Willingham avoids the tendency to
go for the flashy, dramatic resolution and in doing so, she creates a
more gentle romance, a romance of emotional depth that endears the
reader to her characters from start to finish. For this reader, Davin's
character was one of the highlights of HER WARRIOR SLAVE that made it
shine beyond the interactions between the main characters.
In
emotional tone, HER WARRIOR SLAVE
comes closest to the author's
previous book, HER WARRIOR KING.
The past wounds of the hero and
heroine motivate them, drawing them together on a deeper level as they
understand one another's deepest longings. HER WARRIOR SLAVE is a
prelude to her previous three books that tells the legendary beginning
of the Mac Egan brothers and what a fascinating, emotional link it is!
Michelle Willingham has a gift for showing readers the wounded soul
that lies beneath her characters and especially in her tough warrior
heroes. She also has a knack for creating secondary characters whose
stories I want to hear! Here most definitely, Orin needs a tale of his
own but there were several other characters too whom I would enjoy
seeing again. Of all her books, the plot of this one had me really
anxious to see the outcome of the romance and what would happen and how
and to discover the surprises awaiting.
This
reader has read about hostages, slaves and fostering quite
often in medieval texts written during the period. It just goes without
saying that these things exist in medieval texts so much so that often
a reader glosses over them. Michelle Willingham made several of these
concepts more than just words, more real in a personal way with her
insights into the characters. Medieval lovers will relish the author's
twist on the classic medieval tragic Tristan-Iseult tales as Michelle
Willingham brings motherhood into the dynamics of love as a vital core
to the dynamic between the characters and turns tragedy into romance.
