Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.
Lädt ... Lord of Ice (2002. Auflage)von Gaelen Foley
Werk-InformationenLord of Ice von Gaelen Foley
Keine Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. Lord of Ice was OK. I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book. I felt sorry for Damien having to deal with his PTSD and I admired how Miranda did her best to try to help him overcome his demons. However, once they uttered the "love" word, the romance become sappy and the rest of the story so predictable that I just didn't care how it was going to end. I'm beginning to wonder how much I actually enjoyed The Duke after the next two in the series. This one suffered massively from "skimming" over things, or just plain summarizing pretty huge events. I've come to appreciate, and almost love, how Foley just seems to really embrace the most dramatic tropes possible. But this book suffered so massively from multiple sections just being "summed" up. The entire last 10% of the book is literally just Foley telling us a bunch of stuff that happened, and as a result there's absolutely no emotional impact at the end. None. It was like Foley remembered, "Oh, shit, Napoleon escaped Elba and I'm already at 285 pages." That being said, at least Damien and Miranda weren't QUITE as Too Stupid To Live as Lucien and Alice, but it would've been a very very close contest. I continue to love this series. As much as I fell for Lucien I fell harder for Damien. Damien Knight, Earl of Winterley, is a wounded warrior that is in need of someone to listen and understand what he has gone through. War during this time period was gruesome. Swords, guns and cannons and men rushing head long into the field of fire. I can't imagine the carnage that would be present on a battlefield. All the blood and suffering. Plus there was almost no medical help for serious wounds after a battle. Many men died of infection, remember antibiotics had come into being yet. Many others died of blood loss, transfusions also had not come into being yet. I am not surprised that it took so long that PTSD was recognized in war veterans. Damien is definitely an knight in shining armor. He is kind, intelligent, honorable and compassionate. I loved how he tried to protect Miranda. Miranda FitzHubert is a fiery, independent, and compassionate young woman. She protected those girls younger than her from the abuse of those that were to care and protect them. She is a natural actress and loves the adoration of an audience. However, she also knows that her mother wanted her to enter society and be a Lady. In some ways Miranda is insecure. She has been told all her life that she is no one and never will be. I think though that she is probably the perfect match for Damien. She knows the terrors of losing her parents and trying to fight the abuse of those in charge at her school. She is going to be a great mother and aunt. This is another of those books that doesn't fit into a mold. While there is some sex it isn't until later in the book and it is brief. There is some action also at the end of the story. We do meet some interesting characters in this story and I have to wonder if they will show up in future books. It was nice to see Robert and Bel; Lucien and Alice; Harry, Lady Jacinda, Miss Carlise, Lord Alec. There are some very funny places in the story and few were you will probably need tissues. This is a wonderful story and I read it in record time. A fine example of the historical romance genre. keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Gehört zur ReiheAuszeichnungen
Damien Knight, the earl of Winterley, is proud, aloof, and tormented by memories of war. Though living in seclusion, he is named guardian to a fellow officer's ward. Instead of the young homeless waif he was expecting, however, Miranda FitzHubert is a stunning, passionate beauty who invades his sanctuary and forces him back into society. Struggling to maintain honour and self-control, Damien now faces an ever greater threat: desire. A bold, free spirit, Miranda has witnessed the darkest depths of Damien's soul - and has seen his desperate need for love. But before she can thaw his unyielding heart, she must endure a terrifying nightmare of her own . . . Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
Aktuelle DiskussionenKeineBeliebte Umschlagbilder
Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
Bist das du?Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor. |
Damien and Miranda were a memorable hero and heroine. Damien is an intense, tortured alpha with the call of the warrior in his blood and an extreme case of PTSD from the time he spent in the Peninsular War fighting on the front lines. After an incident in Lord of Fire, where he lost track of where he was and came back to himself with weapons in his hands, he decided to live a solitary life for the safety of his loved ones. The psychological pain he experiences is so intense that he has thought of killing himself more than once, and he has a few flashbacks that were violent enough to make me a tad squeamish, one involving a horse, which as an animal lover, was particularly disturbing. Miranda is a strong, independent-minded young lady, who is a spitfire without being shrewish and is gentle and sensitive without being a push-over, which is an amazing balance for an author to be able to strike. At first, I found myself thinking of Miranda in a childish way, but perhaps that was a stroke of genius on Ms. Foley's part, since that is what Damien had initially thought as well. It didn't take long for Miranda to “grow up”, and although she did lie to Damien a few times, I am happy to say that she never had any TSTL moments. She was a very smart girl, who always seemed to know when to cut her losses and simply tell the truth. Miranda had been through tremendous pain in her own life. She was a bastard child, lost her parents at a young age, was sent to live in a terrible boarding school where she was abused, and now her own uncle is trying to kill her, yet she somehow still maintains a spirited, “glass half-full” approach to life. My other favorite scene is when Miranda tried to get a rise out of the buttoned-up Damien by saying some rather scandalous things, which made me laugh. Miranda is not afraid to go after what she wants, and that, she discovers pretty quickly, is Damien. She is almost the exact opposite of Damien, but is deftly able to handle him, even in his darkest moments. I loved her fearlessness, determination and loyalty to her man, and how she never gave up on him, even when he tried his best to drive her away. The personalities of this couple reminded me a great deal of the hero and heroine from Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels, so anyone who has enjoyed that book, should like this one and vice versa.
The cast of secondary characters was superb with all the Knight siblings playing fairly significant roles except for black sheep, Jack, who has yet to make an appearance. It was so nice to catch up with Robert and Bel from The Duke, as well as Lucien and Alice from Lord of Fire, and see the changes in their lives. I like that these books seem to take place almost consecutively, with no time lost in between stories. Also present were Jacinda, Lizzie and Alec who get their own books later in the series. There were also brief appearances by Bel's father from The Duke and two of Lucien's young secret agents from Lord of Fire. Readers are given an introduction to the scandalous but charming thief, Billy Blade, who becomes the hero and object of Jacinda's affection in the next book, Lady of Desire, as well as, the dashing Ian “Griff” Prescott, who becomes the hero of Her Only Desire, the first book in the Spice Trilogy spin-off series. I have to say that both of these men have definitely piqued my interest. With Mr. Reed and Miss Brocklehurst, the headmaster and headmistress of the girl's school; the evil Algernon Sherbrooke, Miranda's murderous uncle; and all of his cronies from the Raptors street gang, there were bad guys aplenty. There was also Algernon's son, Crispin, who is a dissolute rake with a gambling problem, but who doesn't quite seem to have his father's penchant for villainy. All in all, this was a very full and well-rounded cast that made the narrative even more robust.
There was very little I didn't like about the book, but if there was one thing I could change it would be that Damien and Miranda would have had more scenes together. When Damien let his guard down, and they were in each other's presence, they lit up the pages, but most of the time Damien kept Miranda at arms length, thinking it best for her safety. I sometimes wished that he would lighten up a little and not be so stubborn, as I sometimes felt like there was an arctic chill emanating from the pages. Then again, he was an uber-alpha, making those characteristics consistent with his personality. Also, it was pretty overtly implied that Miranda was molested by the headmaster of her school, but other than the mere acknowledgment of the abuse and justice being served, this aspect of her life was never really explored. I found this to be a little disappointing, but I suppose understandable considering the sheer volume of events that were already on the canvas, as well as the darkness of Damien's PTSD. The inclusion of too many unhappy incidents would have made the story depressing, when a large part of it was pretty intense already. Overall though, these were fairly minor detractors from an otherwise extremely well-written novel. I don't think that any author to date has given me three keepers right in a row, but Gaelen Foley did just that with the first three books of her Knight Miscellany series which I greatly look forward to continuing soon. Lord of Ice is preceded by The Duke and Lord of Fire and is followed by Lady of Desire, Devil Takes a Bride, One Night of Sin and His Wicked Kiss. While Lord of Ice was not to my knowledge ever billed as a Christmas story, the bulk of it does take place around that time of year, making it a timely read for the upcoming holiday season. ( )