and young noblewoman Alyssa Howett knew she had no choice but to release Devlin Fitzhugh, the wild Irish hero who had freed her woman's soul.
A Warrior Walked Alone
His fealty was only to his sworn chieftain or so Devlin Fitzhugh had always believed. Then fate brought him a daughter he'd never known and a passion he'd never dared dream with a sun-bright English rose who would test his loyalty and prove his love!
3.5 Stars, and I know I've been using my trusty 3.5 Star rating a lot lately, but what can I say? I had picked this book up years ago on one of my book-hunting trips. I don't usually go for Harlequins, even the historicals, though I have read a few in the past. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this book. Not saying I was expecting it to be bad, but because I've never really been impressed with the Harlequins I wasn't expecting it to be great either. So I was nicely surprised that the story ended up being rather good! The main characters were both well done, even if Fitzhugh had moments of dumbness, mostly in his understanding of the workings of a female brain. Which was perfectly understandable, lol. Alyssa had moments where she was a little immature and rushed into things without thinking, but she was still pretty likeable. I liked Fitzhugh's little daughter Muirne as well. Sometimes kid characters can be overly clever or cute, but the author handled her perfectly I think. She was certainly a cute character who got some funny lines, but she wasn't ever annoying or overdone. I liked how they fit together as a family. The villain was ok, though there was never any mystery over his schemes. I'm glad he got what he deserved. Also glad his co-conspirator Roisin got herself gone too, she was obnoxious and her actions toward Alyssa only served to make me want to smack her. My one gripe was Fitzhugh's moaning and carrying on through darn near the whole book about how Alyssa was so much younger than him, that she was a child and he was an old seasoned man, that she was almost young enough to be his daughter. There was a 12 year difference between them! That is hardly enough to be wailing on and on about how they are so far apart in age. And unless he was knocking up maids at age 11, there's no way she was even close to being young enough to be his daughter. So that got annoying pretty quick, and was a lame excuse for why he tried to keep himself from being interested in her. Come moan to me about how old you are when there's a 32 year difference, not 12! Especially for the time period the story was set in, when I'm sure no man would have thought anything strange about marrying a woman a decade younger. But I digress. I went into this book thinking it was a medieval set story, but it turned out to be set in the reign of Elizabeth I. That was interesting, I don't often get to read many books in that period. I also immensely liked the fact that the story was set in Ireland, that was a welcome change of scenery I thought. It was interesting to learn a bit about the outlaw clan living in the forest. That was neat, a good change up from the usual castle home. I'm glad I finally took a chance and read this book, it was pretty good. I might even try something else by this author if I ever stumble upon another of her books.