So, today I will review Shadow Warrior by Christine Feehan, number four in her Shadow Riders series. It's a doozy, folks. I started this series with much trepidation because I had been lured in and disappointed by her Leopard and Ghostwalker series. I loved them and then they just got unreadable. The latest Ghostwalkers books was impossible. I gave up on the Leopards a couple of years back.
Shadow Riders... what can I say about them other than they speak really bad Italian and I wouldn't listen to the Audiobooks if you can give them a miss. The narrator's voice is so grating and icky that I felt like I needed to shower. But the books? Holy cats, the books!
This is number four in the series and we get to Vittorio Ferraro. He's a man's man and wants his woman to let him be the head of the household. He needs peace and harmony in his home and despairs of ever finding a woman who can give that to him. Let's face it, many of us would struggle to know a woman who would give that to him.
Then we meet Grace Murphy explosively, almost quite literally, as she jumps out of a trunk where she's been locked by her foster brother for sale to a mob boss to pay off his gambling debts. Vittorio is immediately smitten, and when the foster brother shoots her trying to kill Vittorio and escape with her.
Vittorio takes over her life from there and Grace is too injured to give true consent, but for him, it's good enough. He takes care of her while she's injured but when the foster brother tries to kill her in her hospital room he takes her to his house where the foster brother cannot get to her. He sees to all of her needs and while it chafes at Grace on some level, she truly enjoys handing over control to him as she's never been able to do that in her life, having been raised in the foster system.
However, she recognizes the huge gulf fixed between them and some mean remarks by his mother set them a little further apart when Vittorio desperately needs her to accept him his need to care for her. This was a difficult part to read because you see both sides and how much it tears each of them apart. Vittorio needs trust, complete trust, but he also realizes it's something that comes with time. Grace finds it impossible to trust given her upbringing. She knows he needs it and on some level finds it impossible to give him completely. On top of all of that is the fact that she's read about him in the tabloids for years, something that also does not engender trust.
This whole book is about trust and giving over of self to make the person you love happy and in that finding happiness. I must say, it's a very Objectivist Romantic ideal.
Vittorio loves Grace and he has to know she's safe and happy. She realizes this and gives him that by doing what he tells her. It makes her happy to see him happy, so her happiness and his feed each other as it should in a healthy romantic relationship. Does it mean either of them sacrifice anything for the other in their relationship? Probably on small things, like the fact that Vittorio gives in to Grace's need for her work to keep her happy. She gives up a lot of her modesty to give him what he needs when they are alone. They both want things a certain way and by giving the other what they need they are both completed in way they couldn't be with a person who was constantly fighting them.
The most interesting sub-relationship in this story was the one between Grace and her future mother-in-law, Eloisa. We've seen from previous books that the woman is pure poison to everyone around her, especially her children and who they chose to love. Eloisa causes the biggest rift between Vittorio and Grace and the one that's the hardest to explain to anyone not a Ferraro. She's still constantly carping at her daughter and daughters-in-law, except for Mariko, because she's from a revered Japanese family. However, when push comes to shove she almost dies trying to save Grace. There are unplumbed depths to the woman. I've hated her since the first book. It's really hard for me even admit she has a redeeming feature. Her treatment of Francesca alone is enough to make me want to breathe fire on her.
We get a sub-plot of mob family drama and it's left very open ended at the finish of the book. I think Taviano and Emmaunele's books will be very revealing. In this one Taviano told everyone he intends to marry Nicoletta, who is in Italy for the entirety of this book. We've seen sparks between him and the damaged girl. I will be very surprised how this story turns out.
Emmanuele and Val are still duking it out in this book and we find out more of the why. Val made some remarks to a woman that she overheard and damn, I'll admit, I'd kill him. When Vittorio finds out what he said and how young she was he beats the shit out of Val and I say, well done. I don't care what happens in subsequent books, in this one he deserves every damned hit he gets. As of this book, my opinion of his is pure scum.
This book was good and the love scenes were HAWT without being raunchy. I think you will like it if you like the genre. If not, you will have to completely immerse yourself in a fantasy world where magic can happen.
Shadow Riders... what can I say about them other than they speak really bad Italian and I wouldn't listen to the Audiobooks if you can give them a miss. The narrator's voice is so grating and icky that I felt like I needed to shower. But the books? Holy cats, the books!
This is number four in the series and we get to Vittorio Ferraro. He's a man's man and wants his woman to let him be the head of the household. He needs peace and harmony in his home and despairs of ever finding a woman who can give that to him. Let's face it, many of us would struggle to know a woman who would give that to him.
Then we meet Grace Murphy explosively, almost quite literally, as she jumps out of a trunk where she's been locked by her foster brother for sale to a mob boss to pay off his gambling debts. Vittorio is immediately smitten, and when the foster brother shoots her trying to kill Vittorio and escape with her.
Vittorio takes over her life from there and Grace is too injured to give true consent, but for him, it's good enough. He takes care of her while she's injured but when the foster brother tries to kill her in her hospital room he takes her to his house where the foster brother cannot get to her. He sees to all of her needs and while it chafes at Grace on some level, she truly enjoys handing over control to him as she's never been able to do that in her life, having been raised in the foster system.
However, she recognizes the huge gulf fixed between them and some mean remarks by his mother set them a little further apart when Vittorio desperately needs her to accept him his need to care for her. This was a difficult part to read because you see both sides and how much it tears each of them apart. Vittorio needs trust, complete trust, but he also realizes it's something that comes with time. Grace finds it impossible to trust given her upbringing. She knows he needs it and on some level finds it impossible to give him completely. On top of all of that is the fact that she's read about him in the tabloids for years, something that also does not engender trust.
This whole book is about trust and giving over of self to make the person you love happy and in that finding happiness. I must say, it's a very Objectivist Romantic ideal.
Vittorio loves Grace and he has to know she's safe and happy. She realizes this and gives him that by doing what he tells her. It makes her happy to see him happy, so her happiness and his feed each other as it should in a healthy romantic relationship. Does it mean either of them sacrifice anything for the other in their relationship? Probably on small things, like the fact that Vittorio gives in to Grace's need for her work to keep her happy. She gives up a lot of her modesty to give him what he needs when they are alone. They both want things a certain way and by giving the other what they need they are both completed in way they couldn't be with a person who was constantly fighting them.
The most interesting sub-relationship in this story was the one between Grace and her future mother-in-law, Eloisa. We've seen from previous books that the woman is pure poison to everyone around her, especially her children and who they chose to love. Eloisa causes the biggest rift between Vittorio and Grace and the one that's the hardest to explain to anyone not a Ferraro. She's still constantly carping at her daughter and daughters-in-law, except for Mariko, because she's from a revered Japanese family. However, when push comes to shove she almost dies trying to save Grace. There are unplumbed depths to the woman. I've hated her since the first book. It's really hard for me even admit she has a redeeming feature. Her treatment of Francesca alone is enough to make me want to breathe fire on her.
We get a sub-plot of mob family drama and it's left very open ended at the finish of the book. I think Taviano and Emmaunele's books will be very revealing. In this one Taviano told everyone he intends to marry Nicoletta, who is in Italy for the entirety of this book. We've seen sparks between him and the damaged girl. I will be very surprised how this story turns out.
Emmanuele and Val are still duking it out in this book and we find out more of the why. Val made some remarks to a woman that she overheard and damn, I'll admit, I'd kill him. When Vittorio finds out what he said and how young she was he beats the shit out of Val and I say, well done. I don't care what happens in subsequent books, in this one he deserves every damned hit he gets. As of this book, my opinion of his is pure scum.
This book was good and the love scenes were HAWT without being raunchy. I think you will like it if you like the genre. If not, you will have to completely immerse yourself in a fantasy world where magic can happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment