Reviews for Dark Champion

The average rating for Dark Champion based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-03 00:00:00 Ilie Seuchea I've read and enjoyed all the books in the MacAllister series, so it was only natural that I'd follow Ms. MacGregor into the Brotherhood of the Sword series. While it's not necessary to read the previous series to enjoy this one, I'm glad I did because Ms. MacGregor has the annoying habit of dropping the names of previous characters into her stories expecting the reader to fully understand the importance of those names. Having read her before, I'm kind of used to that writing style, but it doesn't mean I don't wish she stopped doing that. The Brotherhood of the Sword is a group of men who were imprisoned during the Crusades and managed to survive and escape together, forging a close bond with each other. Stryder of Blackmoor is one of these men, a loyal knight who is known to be invencible on the battlefield. Women literally chase after him in hope of marrying him, but he has no intention of ever acquiring a wife. He discovered how love can destroy a man early in life, when his father almost killed him, killed his (Stryder's) mother, and then killed himself in a jealousy fit, so he has no intention of falling prey to love. Lady Rowena de Vitry is the heiress to a healthy fortune and some coveted lands that hold strategic value to King Henry, but she refuses to marry any of her suitors and He gets more and more restless, dreading to see the day when her lands will end up in the hands of one of His enemies. King Henry needs Rowena to marry a strong and loyal knight who will protect her lands and, therefore, His kingdom. So Queen Eleanor comes up with a plan - a most convoluted one, IMHO - to get Stryder and Rowena together, falling in love with each other and getting married, thus solving all Their problems. The thing is, there aren't two people more ill-suited to each other than Stryder and Rowena. He's a knight, and she hates everything related to war, knights included; she's a musician and poet, and he hates everything related to music. But as they are "forced" to spend time together, they start to see each other with new eyes and, as we all know, the rest is history. Naturally, not everything is that easy in Romancelandia, and they have to deal with a series of murders commited by an unknown assassin who may, or may not, be targetting the Brotherhood members. I really liked both Stryder and Rowena, and I enjoyed reading their scenes together - the scene where he tried to write her a letter and ended up dictating it to her was so sigh-worthy :) - but I thought she fell for him way too fast. I mean, Rowena had hated knights all her life but was considering swooning over Stryder after only a couple of encounters?!? Sorry, I couldn't buy that so easily. Anyway, once I decided to "accept" it and move on, I had no problem enjoying the story, which was fast paced and entertaining. There were a couple of twists that weren't as unexpected as they could have been, but as this wasn't a romantic suspense novel, I didn't mind the lack of surprise concerning the mystery part of the story. BUT I do mind the fact that not all mysteries were solved by the end of the book! Okay, I know this book is part of a series but I'm not confident all of the unsolved mysteries will be picked up in the next book because, quite frankly, I got the impression that Ms. MacGregor just forgot about them. I can only hope to be proven wrong when I read Return of the Warrior... All in all, this was a nice and average read, with a couple of sigh-worthy and memorable scenes. Not enough to bump my rating up to 4 stars, though.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-04 00:00:00 Mary Jo Birgensmith ****3,75*** Nice,insta lust-love but still enjoyable read.