Laird of the Mist

I love heroines who can hold their own. Kate has been raised to defend herself with sword and axe. When an attack comes on her poorly defended keep, she's quickly exhausted by the battle - and is surprised when her clan's enemy comes to her rescue. He wants to take her hostage, to lure in and then slay her uncle.

The Romeo-Juliet romance that follows is played out as they travel their way back to Callum's mountain home. There are some nice side characters - Callum's animal-loving sister stands out.

The writing style has a few issues. A single sentence can use the same action word twice. Dialogue changes tone without warning, and changes in scene or time can be confusing. There's a number of "foreign" words used without enough surrounding description to make their meaning clear. So that can make a scene which might be wonderfully rich in imagery become a confusing muddle.

Kate's skill with a sword is quite reasonably portrayed. She practices daily because the dangers are right outside the walls. She knows she needs to be quick, light, and agile to evade a stronger man's attack. And even with her skill, after 15 minutes on the battlefield she is completely exhausted and ready to drop. So I found that quite realistically laid out.

On the other hand, some of the other fighting descriptions seemed fairly generic. I would have hoped, with the sword skills of the heroine being a distinctive trait, that the related activity would have been described with more detail.

In addition, it always irks me when a heroine gets a strong start and then by the middle and end she's sighing and rolling her eyes as her strong, brave man does everything. We have that here. In the first scenes she's sure with a blade and takes on the challenge. By the end a fairly long sequence of events happens and somehow she's helpless and unable to do anything throughout all of it.

Still, while those issues did affect the story, to me they did not detract from an overall enjoyment of how the adventure played out. I liked very much that the hero had a deeply flawed background, that he had a path forged in his mind, and that he had to fight to open his mind to peace. I liked that his sister had those same struggles. Yes, one could say the hero and heroine were a bit crazy in love, but that's not unusual in most romance novels. I was very grateful that even in his rages that the author never resorted to having him abuse the heroine. I like that the hero respected the heroine's strength and that his struggle was with his own torments - not with dominating her.

So despite its flaws, I enjoyed this story, and I was just as happy by the resolution of some of the side-stories as I was by the ending between the two main characters.

Buy Laird of the Mist from Amazon.com

Books with Medieval Swordswomen


Medieval Romance Basics
Medieval Romance for Villagers
Medieval Romance for Nobles
Medieval Romance for Men
Medieval Romance for Women


Life in Medieval Days

Lisa's Medieval Romances
Seeking the Truth
Knowing Yourself
A Sense of Duty


Online Literary Magazines

Lisa Shea Website Main Page