Saturday, March 16, 2013

Irish Hearts by Nora Roberts


Synopsis: Adelia Cunnane. Her hot temper sent the heart of Travis Grant aflame. Now the proud, powerful owner of Royal Meadows horse farm resolved to make this wild Irish Thoroughbred his own.
Erin McKinnon. A bold beauty, she accepted Burke Logan's loveless proposal and his cool promise of security and wealth. But could this ravishing Irish Rose win her hard-hearted husband's love?
My thoughts: First of all, I would like to apologize to any Irish person that reads this – who knows right? – because I believe that the Irish aren’t such airheads like the main characters when is about wealth and beautiful things. Ireland is a BEAUTIFUL place and my dream is to visit there someday to see all those view I can only see through Google Maps. Anyway, back to the book.
                There are two novels in this romance.
The first one - Irish Thoroughbred - is about Adelia Cunnane, a simple countryside girl that lost her farm and goes to America to live with her uncle and only relative Paddy. He works in a farm owned by Travis Grant, a handsome horse-lover man. Their first encounter is at night – that´s not what you are thinking folks – when Adelia went to the stables to check on the horses – she started to work there once she arrived – and he saw her and thought she was a boy. Because of her short-temper and her delicate figure, he falls in love at first sight for her, and at first she thinks that he’s hot but that’s all. As the reading goes, there are some heated kisses here and there and you keep hoping that they will advance from that, but nothing happens. It was really frustrating, I have to admit. Then they get married, because he wanted her and vice-versa, but none of them would admit to themselves nor for each other. And when they FINALLY have their first night together… the book ends. Just like that.
Ok, not at first – there are, like, six more pages to end it – but it ends! I had such high hopes for the story and when finally something was about to happen… bleh, it ends and they live happily ever after. However, it was very well written and catching, otherwise I wouldn’t be so disappointed by the end of it.
The second was my favorite. We are presented to Erin McKinnon, a countryside girl as well and Adelia’s cousin. The protagonist’s dream is to leave her village once and for all, to go to Dublin, find a job and live there, but who would have thought that her cousin’s visit to Ireland would bring such a surprise by the name of Burke Logan? Even though I didn’t really like his first name, I really like the character. He’s in his thirties and she has eighteen (fine… yeah, right), but her ambition and dreams light Burke’s heart that he thought would never light again due to his past, and he proposes to her that she moves to America to work as his bookkeeper – an excuse to have her close to him. Obviously, she goes with him and stays at her cousin’s, that borders with Logan’s farm. She starts to work for him and there are a lot of cute, embarrassing and funny moments through the reading. He has a sort of ironic humor and he keeps teasing her, and she falls harder and harder for him. This one was a little more exciting because they SLEEP together – yes, people, FINALLY! – and because of that, Burke offers her to marry him in order to be safe and have anything that she wants – but what he truly wanted was to have her with him because he couldn’t stand the thought of having her with someone else. However, nothing comes that easy, and Erin will soon find out that her husband has a very painful past and due to that he doesn’t allow himself to love again, even though she shows him – almost every day during their marriage beginning – that she loves him endlessly.
Well, as I said before, I loved the second rather than the first one. Irish Rose – second novel – is sweet with more story and a little bit of suspense, comedy, lots of romance and more action than the first one. At least this one doesn’t end right after their first night!! This is my first Nora Roberts novel, and as far as I can tell, even though she has a great ability to capture the reader and writes excellently, her characters are “programmed”, so to speak, to be what the readers expects them to be, and especially if her audience is female – which is – the romance is made to make you identify with the main character, so It can become quite clichéd. I recommend them as a pastime reading, not something that needs your meditation “24/7”, so to speak. It’s a very pleasant reading nonetheless. J
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