elliefufu's review
3.0
Haunted Warrior by Allie Mackay
Grade: C-
“Now at last she understood why American women swooned over Scottish men. It wasn’t the long, proud history and heritage, all the flashing plaid and swagger. Nor was it the swinging kilts and the age-old-mystery of what was or wasn’t beneath them. Above all else, it was the accent.”
Kendra Chase has two jobs: one as a landscape historian and the second working for Ghostcatchers International. As someone who can speak to ghosts Kendra’s work for Ghostcatchers takes her all over the world and her latest assignment has sent her to a small fishing village in the Scottish highlands called Pennard. A large company is trying to buy Pennard and turn it into a tourist amusement park and many of the locals, both dead and alive, are not happy about this. Kendra’s job is to find out why the ghosts are unhappy and fix the situation but Kendra never expected to feel such an attachment to the small village or to one of the key protesters Graeme MacGrath.
Graeme MacGrath will stop at nothing to save Pennard from the development project and from his long time enemy Gavin Ramsay. The MacGraths and the Ramsays have been at odds for hundreds and hundreds of years and as the last descendants of their bloodlines neither man will stop to protect or destroy what they believe is theirs. Graeme has never felt the way about any woman the way he feels about Kendra and he will do anything in his power to protect her from Ramsay and himself. Graeme and Kendra both have secrets that they have sworn not to reveal but by trusting each other they might be able to save Pennard and finally destroy the evil that lies beneath it.
I was very excited when I was offered the chance to review Haunted Warrior because I love a good Scottish romance but sadly I was very disappointed and found the story to be very predictable. I was very excited after reading the first couple of paragraphs and was really starting to loose myself in the plot and the characters and then Kendra went a started acting really annoying and continued to do so for the remainder of the book. There is nothing that I dislike more then either the hero or heroine “falling in love” with the other after sixty pages and no knowledge of who the person they “love” really is. Kendra started “falling in love” with Graeme at page sixty and it all went downhill from here.
Graeme is a great character and I really enjoyed him throughout the entire book. Without him I honestly can’t say that I would have been able to finish Haunted Warrior. Kendra, as I mentioned before, was very annoying and all I wanted was for her to stop saying she was in love with Graeme at the end of almost every single chapter. I wish that more of the story would have been told from Graeme’s point of view because then we learned more of the village and the history of the MacGraths which I loved.
I really enjoyed the interactions with the ghosts of Pennard and really wish there had been more of them. I found the book lacking in both paranormal and actual romance scenes. A lot of the story, for me was Kendra talking over and over again about how she wanted to kiss Graeme again and how she was either falling in love or was in love with him. I would have enjoyed more sexy scenes between the two or more scenes with the ghosts of the town.
This is defiantly a stand alone book and parts of it are very enjoyable. I find it hard to love a book when you really dislike a main characters and that was my problem with Haunted Warrior. I wanted Scottish paranormal romance and instead got a lot of an American girl whining over a sexy highlander.
Grade: C-
“Now at last she understood why American women swooned over Scottish men. It wasn’t the long, proud history and heritage, all the flashing plaid and swagger. Nor was it the swinging kilts and the age-old-mystery of what was or wasn’t beneath them. Above all else, it was the accent.”
Kendra Chase has two jobs: one as a landscape historian and the second working for Ghostcatchers International. As someone who can speak to ghosts Kendra’s work for Ghostcatchers takes her all over the world and her latest assignment has sent her to a small fishing village in the Scottish highlands called Pennard. A large company is trying to buy Pennard and turn it into a tourist amusement park and many of the locals, both dead and alive, are not happy about this. Kendra’s job is to find out why the ghosts are unhappy and fix the situation but Kendra never expected to feel such an attachment to the small village or to one of the key protesters Graeme MacGrath.
Graeme MacGrath will stop at nothing to save Pennard from the development project and from his long time enemy Gavin Ramsay. The MacGraths and the Ramsays have been at odds for hundreds and hundreds of years and as the last descendants of their bloodlines neither man will stop to protect or destroy what they believe is theirs. Graeme has never felt the way about any woman the way he feels about Kendra and he will do anything in his power to protect her from Ramsay and himself. Graeme and Kendra both have secrets that they have sworn not to reveal but by trusting each other they might be able to save Pennard and finally destroy the evil that lies beneath it.
I was very excited when I was offered the chance to review Haunted Warrior because I love a good Scottish romance but sadly I was very disappointed and found the story to be very predictable. I was very excited after reading the first couple of paragraphs and was really starting to loose myself in the plot and the characters and then Kendra went a started acting really annoying and continued to do so for the remainder of the book. There is nothing that I dislike more then either the hero or heroine “falling in love” with the other after sixty pages and no knowledge of who the person they “love” really is. Kendra started “falling in love” with Graeme at page sixty and it all went downhill from here.
Graeme is a great character and I really enjoyed him throughout the entire book. Without him I honestly can’t say that I would have been able to finish Haunted Warrior. Kendra, as I mentioned before, was very annoying and all I wanted was for her to stop saying she was in love with Graeme at the end of almost every single chapter. I wish that more of the story would have been told from Graeme’s point of view because then we learned more of the village and the history of the MacGraths which I loved.
I really enjoyed the interactions with the ghosts of Pennard and really wish there had been more of them. I found the book lacking in both paranormal and actual romance scenes. A lot of the story, for me was Kendra talking over and over again about how she wanted to kiss Graeme again and how she was either falling in love or was in love with him. I would have enjoyed more sexy scenes between the two or more scenes with the ghosts of the town.
This is defiantly a stand alone book and parts of it are very enjoyable. I find it hard to love a book when you really dislike a main characters and that was my problem with Haunted Warrior. I wanted Scottish paranormal romance and instead got a lot of an American girl whining over a sexy highlander.
raven_acres's review
3.0
It was good, not great, felt a bit jerky throughout. I admit to grabbing it because of the same first name, and hoped I could truly like the characters more, but just couldn't sink in to them. The story went in to much along the descriptions of the location and the hatred the one character felt. I would have liked more depth with the two main characters, and even the dog! Did like the part with the seals, however.
ercamcll's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
sarah1984's review
3.0
Not as good as some other Scottish themed supernatural romances. Especially Karen Marie Moning's books. I didn't think the romance scenes were as good as they could have been, they had potential but didn't live up to it.
laurla's review
"knowing his dog was happy was one of the high points of his life. he doubted he could tolerate certain things without jock."
"he could read her the telephone book or the impossibly thick instruction manual. it wouldn't matter. anything at all would do. as long as she could listen to his rich, buttery-soft burr washing over her like verbal silk, melting her." (i feel the same about Scottish accents)
"he could read her the telephone book or the impossibly thick instruction manual. it wouldn't matter. anything at all would do. as long as she could listen to his rich, buttery-soft burr washing over her like verbal silk, melting her." (i feel the same about Scottish accents)
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