Lady Sheena zoufale prchá z rodného hradu Ogof, pronásledovaná obviněním z vraždy a děsivými vzpomínkami. Nemá nikoho, kdo by jí mohl pomoci, a také dobře ví, že zbrojnoši jsou jí v patách, a tak se ukryje na lodi s názvem Temný safír. Kapitán Keegan o lásku nestojí. Vzpomínky na to, jak jeho otec kvůli milostnému pobláznění přišel o vše – dokonce i o život –, jsou v Keeganově mysli až příliš živé. Ne, Keegan nikdy nedopustí, aby na jeho rozhodnutí měly větší vliv city než chladné úvahy! Když k němu námořníci předvedou černou pasažérku, kterou našli v podpalubí, Keeganovi se zdá dívka povědomá, ale nedokáže si vzpomenout, odkud ji zná. Zato Sheena nemá nejmenší pochybnost – stačí jí jediný pohled, aby v kapitánových očích spatřila odlesk temného safíru, který před lety tragicky spoutal jejich osudy. A zatímco se mezi nimi znovu rodí někdejší vášeň, osud už má pro ně uchystané další zkoušky, kdy jim oběma znovu půjde o život…
Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of over ninety-five novels, including the Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya Series, the Pescoli and Alvarez Series, the Savannah series, and numerous stand alone novels. She also is the co-author of One Last Breath, Last Girl Standing, and the Colony Series, written with her sister and bestselling author Nancy Bush, as well as the collaborative novels Sinister and Ominous, written with Nancy Bush and Rosalind Noonan. There are over thirty million copies of her novels in print and her writing has been translated into twenty languages.
Before she became a nationally bestselling author, she was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.
With dozens of bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity—and back—in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions. She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional, and the downright twisted. As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies, and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families.
The writing wasn’t good at all. The characters spoke everything backwards and it was so highly irritating to read. “A clever girl she is.” “As I am loyal to Tardiff, so I be loyal here.” “That part of your life you remember not.”
I’ve never come across this way of speaking in anything that I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot of historical novels. Idk if it’s historically accurate or not, but it didn’t sound like it, and if it was it was too idiotic to use in a novel. No one wants to read people talking like this. Speaking accurately for the medieval age doesn’t mean you have everyone talk backwards, I would say. Ignorant it is, and stupid it sounds.
The instant connection between Keegan and Sheena was overdone, considering the fact that they were so young and they haven’t even met each other, only looked at each other. After Keegan’s father, Rourke, got killed, Sheena leads Keegan to safety, asking to go with him, but he kisses her and then abandons her, which made me not like him. What made me really hate him was that he’d gotten married to another woman. I HATED that. It was just unforgivable, but I guess to make it okay the author had Keegan completely forget Sheena and the curse she cast on him, and everything that happened when he was 14. Okayy. It had been a perfect setup that he would be a virgin, and I expected it because it said he had nothing to do with women. He had his first kiss with Sheena, and they had met so young I thought surely that would mean they stayed together, or at least true to each other and didn’t get with anyone else until they met again in the future. But no, he hated women because of his experience with a calculating wife who cheated on him, and he walked in to find her with another man, in the bed they’d first made love in (how sweet). He left, and came back some time later to find her grave and learn that she had been pregnant with another man’s child. I hate when authors have the 2 main characters meet at a young age and then fast forward a ridiculously long amount of time, after he’d been with women, totally forsaking his alleged deep feelings for the main woman, and she hasn’t been with a single man. That just sucks.
Many annoying habits surfaced that really grated on my nerves. There’s nothing like repetition to really make me go insane. Sheena thought literally 3 or 4 times that Keegan was the boy from her past. She realized the first time that he was, but then kept going on to question it, 3 times. How irritating. I can’t stand repetition and hearing things more than once. And Keegan kept questioning her identity too, thinking he knew her but not remembering where, and the vaguely remembered feelings of love. Are you kidding me? Love at age 14 to a stranger, now I’ve heard it all. And his inability to remember her until the right moment was annoying too; the author dragged it out in her forceful and controlled manner, like everything else in the book.
The characters also kept talking out loud to themselves, when it just didn’t make sense to do so. They should’ve thought it to themselves, not spoken out loud to an empty room. It made them seem crazy that they were always having these long, boring paragraphs of their thoughts and then would randomly speak a sentence out loud, and then launch back into their thoughts. Thinking out loud, especially so often, is just annoying. I can’t stand when characters do it because it’s just crazy. Sheena would say things out loud that didn’t need to be said out loud, and didn’t make sense to, like “tis time to face him,” and “god help me” in random places.
They sounded so unintelligent, all of them. Authors sometimes have the bad guy speak stupidly, or some other character, to have the bridge in class and station, and that difference between the main characters and them, but in here every single person spoke the same way, which was unrealistic because they were all from different classes in life, and was just annoying because I was always surrounded by stupidity and didn’t have one finely speaking person in the entire novel. Everyone sounded so stupid. I cringed every time as I read their dialogues. Sheena was the first, followed by Keegan. I didn’t like them or their speech, or their personalities, or actions, so they had nothing going for them. Sheena said “but they not be empty for long, me thinks.” Omg, me thinks? I can’t believe I just read that. This was so painful to read. They were always saying something stupid, and it just made the book hard to read and them hard to like. Keegan said “whatever be my secrets, they be mine.” And Sheena said “In case I needs get up and it be dark and I cannot find them. The deck be too wet to go bare of feet.”
Then they both just suddenly realize that they love each other, out of nowhere. And they’re saying they felt love when they were 14. One kiss at age 14 and suddenly you’re in love. Wow. I’m just astounded. The love was completely forced the entire time. It was so stilted and forced on readers, and I wasn’t believing a bit of it. I’ve never had an author fail so thoroughly in this department, mentioning love the first instant the characters see each other, and then fast-forwarding 11 years, only to have them both fall in love in a laughably short amount of time. The author had an agenda and it was clear she was rushing the story to the end result without having things unfold naturally and realistically.
I didn’t like Sheena, or her name, which seemed really modern for the middle ages. I don’t know if they had names like that out then, and I don’t care enough to look it up. The first time we meet her she’s running a horse ragged. The horse is soaked with sweat, but her eyes are bright and she looks pretty after spending no energy on that ride herself, letting the horse do all of the work, and that’s what’s important, that she looks fiery for Keegan. Then she does it again toward the end when her and Keegan are running from Sir Manning. That poor hose got pushed to the limit. And then because they stopped to make love and Sir Manning almost caught up with them, they had to hurry and push the horse on again. Keegan says run you bastard, and Sheena says run faster you beast. What nice people. She always calls horses beasts like they’re just there for the sole purpose of carrying burdens like her. That didn’t set well with me at all.
I felt sorry for the way Rourke, Keegan’s father, and Keegan himself treated Hollis, the old man, but he was annoying so I was just irritated by him. He was always passing judgment, wouldn’t shut up, and was keeping the secret of the sapphire ring from Keegan. There again, every last character was annoying or unlikable in one way or another. She couldn’t even scrounge together qualities to make me like any of the characters. Bo was the best, but I didn’t care about any of them.
Another time Keegan kicked his horse. I’m sorry, but kicking the horse sounds a little violent. I think there’s a better way to say that, instead of leaving me with the feeling of animal abuse.
The story was completely lacking. There was just no story here. Over 300 pages just went by in a blur of nothing. I was almost done with the book and sat there mentally scratching my head, wondering what had happened and having serious trouble remembering. That’s because nothing did happen.
The ending passed by painfully in a blur of boredom and carelessness. I just skimmed and scanned, because most of it, like the rest of the book, was unimportant and just so boring and painful to plod through. Sheena weakly attempts to offer herself to Sir Manning and let Keegan and his men go free, not trying hard enough in my opinion, saying nay, take me and let them go. In fact, everyone said nay all the time; they all sounded like horses. I can’t stand people saying nay. She finally, finally, goes with Manning, but then I have to suffer through Keegan and the soldiers, tricking them into thinking he’s going along with them, and Sheena and her father’s declining health. And then there’s all the repetition, which this author was so fond of; she always repeated everything again and again. Sheena kept saying she liked the crew, the bunch of cutthroats and thieves and liars, over and over. She didn’t even come to know any of them! She never spoke with any of them about their pasts, so how the freak could she make a statement like that?! How ludicrous. It’s like the author was copying pirate books she’d read that had the rich lady fall in love with the captain and his band of thieves, except in here Sheena didn’t have time to do that, and didn’t have the opportunity. She stayed in his cabin 98% of the time, and only spoke to Bo about Keegan’s dead wife. There’s a connection for you. And it was mentioned once that Keegan was carrying something on the ship, but it was never mentioned what it was. Did he find treasure? Did he rob another ship? Is he sailing alcohol around? Are there dead bodies in the barrels? WHAT?! What does he even do? All these things are unimportant to the author, who brings things up and then never explains.
The thing I was most mad about, besides the love that came out of nowhere, and besides the awful atrocity of a love story, was that Sheena spent the entire book being believed to be a witch. Everyone feared her because of that, thinking she had the power of Morrugu, whoever the freak that was. And what came of it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I watched as the entire book ended and not one word was said regarding Sheena’s alleged powers. I was thinking in the beginning it was going to have supernatural abilities in the book, and when nothing of the sort ever happened, I waited for Sheena to admit it was a lie. That didn’t happen either. Almost like the author didn’t know what the heck she was doing, or didn’t think the plot tool she was using the entire novel deserved an explanation. A complete and utter fail. This attempt at a romance novel was a fail on every count. I wish I’d never read it and wasted my precious time. There’s nothing going for it at all.
This book be stupid. It be annoying. Never had read it, I wish I had. I needs get that dollar back I paid for it, but be done it cannot. Methinks awful was book. It wasn’t even worth the dollar I paid for it, and I’m so mad I got pulled in by the pirate ship on the front. There was nothing about pirates, no adventure, excitement, romance, humor or anything of interest. I’ve read several by her now and I’m done reading her books because they’re boring beyond measure, the writing is awful and the characters and plot are annoying and pretty much go nowhere. I want my dollar back. It’s more than this book should have ever been worth.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Castle Ogof, Wales, year 1369. A Captain of a sailing ship and his young teenage son, and men from the ship travel to the Castle to act upon a 20 year vengeance. The Captain Rourke, had lost the love of his life to the owner of the Castle in a game twenty years ago, and had vowed to return twenty years later. He does, however, he finds his love has passed on, and has been replaced by another, as the wife of the Castle. The daughter from the first wife, helps the Captain's son, Keegan escape, after his father was killed in a fight. Her step-mother has no love for Sheena.
Later the daughter, Sheena is in great peril, and now the son of the Captain Rourke, Captain Keegan comes to her aid. He has no idea who she is though. He now has his own ship. Many adventures are had, and a wicked evil step-mother is cause for much hate. All works out in the end.
4 Stars I’ve been on a pirate binge lol and I read this book years ago. I decided to read it again and it was still pretty good! Hopefully the rest in this series are as well:))
This book had an interesting enough story line, but I found that the way it was delivered was lacking. I found the writing boring and it did not quite grip me. I found the characters where lacking and that some of their relationships where a bit far fetched and unbelievable. I give it two stars only because the concept of the story was interesting and some of the action scenes where good allowing me to actually finish the book. I won't be rushing out to pick up another book by Lisa Jackson any time soon.
Back in the day I would have loved this book but now it just seems so trite with a well-used plot with no surprises at all. Too predictable and it was hard to get behind any of the characters (except for Bo whom I really liked).
Keegan was a young lad when he saw his father Captain Rourke killed by Jestin of Ogof over a game of dice. When Jestin’s soldiers came for him, he ran and was shown the way to safety by Sheena, Jestin’s daughter. She took Keegan to a small rowboat and begged him to take her with him. He kissed her and took off rowing to his father’s ship. Years later, he is captain of his ship and is startled when his crew drags over a woman found to be a stowaway. He thinks he knows her but can’t remember. She remembers him. Sheena’s father had forced her to marry an evil man and she killed him. Guards are now after her and she has stowed away hoping to elude them. Now she just hopes Keegan can save her from the fate of a hangman’s noose.
Dark Sapphire set in Wales starts with two men making wagers, just as they did twenty years earlier for the love of a woman. Keegan is the son of the sea captain that cheats and is caught and dies. Keegan is helped to escape by Sheena, the daughter of the Lord of the castle. This starts their adventure, romance and fight against evil with a little help from magic.
I love a good romance with lots of action, a strong woman with a little sass, Sheena and a hero that wins the day in the end, Keegan. The story starts and ends at the Castle Ogof. This one had the wicked step-mother too for an added twist of evil. Dark Sapphire is set in Wales in the 1200's.
this isn't that bad a story... I'm jus not into reading stuff that dates back to prehistoric times...I couldn't even stay awake to get through the prologue. it's great to cure insomnia