A Pirate of Her Own
Sea Wolves #2
Kinley MacGregor
Historical Romance
Published in 2003
H/h - Captain Morgan Drake/Serenity James
Setting: Savannah, Georgia 1793 (83?)
Read in May, 2011.
My rating:
[spoiler alert]
This book is the story of Morgan Drake, who was Jack Rhys's friend and helped him in some of his voyages in Master of Seduction. Morgan was in British navy. Jack saved his life, which made him one of his close friends. I'm also confused about the time frame since it's says 1793 at the beginning, which starts with the report by Serenity. While inside the story, there are ample examples which proves that the story takes place 3 yrs after the 1st book and not 13 yrs. Also, it's not like the 1st one, which means, I'm still not hooked as Master of Seduction. I hate it when a book proves to be a drag for the most part of it, so I sincerely hope this one doesn't turn out to be one of those. I'll try to point out why I'm feeling this way.
Ok:
#1 The heroine, Serenity, for sure. I don't know what to think about her. She's got a hyperbolic imagination at the age of 24, which I find immensely annoying. I read about her fascination about the Sea Wolf and then find her doing/thinking things so TSTL that only a child would do/think, what am I supposed to do? But, she's not always TSTL. Sometimes she manages to say things that I actually enjoy, mostly the banters between Morgan (the Pirate captain) and her. But, overall she's confusing me to distraction.
#2 The hero, Morgan. He seems like a nice guy (for a Pirate), a gentleman but then I learn some distasteful information about his 'wenching around', which I found quite hard to believe. I mean really! I DON'T WANNA KNOW STUFF LIKE THAT ABOUT THE HERO, c'mon! Apart from that, I'm also vacillating about him.
#3 Jack Rhys aka Jake Dudley, the hero of Master of Seduction I liked him so much in his book, in this one I find it hard to believe he has a scary countenance (then again, I probably shouldn't trust Serenity's judgement!) and he's so crass in his attitude. Stuffs he keeps saying to Morgan, I couldn't believe it's that same charming, funny, beautiful Pirate captain who enchanted me in Master of Seduction! With the change of his name from Jack to Jacob, which he did at the end of Master of Seduction (thx to Lorelei) has his personality also changed? Or, I just didn't see this side of him there? I don't know and I don't like it. :(
#4 The story itself. Kinda going over my head at the moment. I'm about halfway through but nothing really important happening. We know Serenity wants to become a reporter and works in her father's printing press, even though her father doesn't like it. She idolizes feminist writers like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Mary Astell. Her father is an ill-tempered man, who is just not happy with his daughters, one Chastity who ran away with another man while Serenity has become a spinster. I don't know what he thinks about Honor, who it seems, is the beauty of the family. Serenity probably had her feminist ideas from her deceased mother. I would've thought she would be smart, with a sharp outlook on life and a wit to match with it. But, alas! As I already said, I'm disappointed in her. She wrote a piece (mostly imaginary with a little sprinkle of the real story) on this mysterious "Sea Wolf" who is also her hero, someone she craves in real life as well. This leads to all sorts of things, mostly stupid and Jake/Jack was able to abduct her at night and take her to Morgan's ship. Jake's thoughts on it was reasonable. Since that piece gave away information on the Sea Wolf or Morgan, a pirate hunter they know now onto them might abduct her and torture her for more information.
Morgan was also interested investigate the author because of the fact that the story includes too many info on him and meets Serenity, when she was alone in her father's office. He's immediately attracted to her, even though she's not his type (bleh!). And, all Serenity can do/doing so far is openly drooling on him, over him, all around him. Yah, that's right! He's so gorgeous, it's all she can do to keep her hands off of him and not jump onto his lap. It intensified (and fed her fantasies more) when she learned that this is the Sea Wolf she's so crazy about. Lord, why doesn't this happen to me?! I'm much better [read: more adept] than Serenity in the drooling business. :p
Serenity had a plan to take an interview of the man; for which she went out at the middle of the night and Jake, who was waiting, kidnapped her even before she was outta her front porch. *resigned sigh* Now that she's confined in the ship while it sails somewhere unknown (at least I don't know yet), she's determined more than ever to learn more about this man she likes to drool upon, goes all starry-eyed and shaky when he's near.
Morgan? Ah, that man's trying so hard not to bring out his 'main-mast' and show her some tricks. (I'm a bit scared about his tricks after learning some certain information!)
And me? I'm yawning a bit too much, which doesn't bode well for the book. :/
PS: I thought Kit's (Jake/Jack's adoptive son) eye-color was green and not light blue. Think I'm having a hangover!
********************
I'm disappointed. I had such hopes for this one; the beginning had the potentials but ultimately, the whole story turned out to be pretty mixed up. By this I mean the characters were just the way I've already mentioned til the end. I found Morgan likable but not quite fascinating. Serenity's leap from TSTL to non-TSTL to TSTL again made me insane. Jake/Jack also disappointed me and I've already explained why. The only time I liked him when he was talking about Lorelei.
The story had a lot of plot holes, mismatching information. One good example I've already given, the year's supposed to be 1783 and not 1793 (trust me, there are examples that indirectly give away clues). Another was the story about Morgan and Jack's first meeting. I thought Jack saved Morgan while he was running away from the British navy, where he was sold as a young boy by one of the villains in the novel, who was also responsible for Morgan's sister Penelope's death. But, here it's said that they met on the ship where Morgan was stationed and Jack was raiding it. Another one is, Jack's own past history. When Morgan tells Serenity about it, I thought he didn't know the correct information as was revealed in Master of Seduction. But, then in the later part of the book, in one of the scenes where Jack and Serenity talks, I was proven wrong and left really confused! Also have to mention, I had to do maths to figure out Morgan's age, I'm not even sure if I'm correct since there weren't a lot of clues to that whereas I knew Serenity was 24. But, I guess I should be happy since in Master of Seduction, I didn't have any clue to Lorelei and Jack's age. But, the story was interesting so it didn't really matter in the end.
The story goes on board of the ship and then in an island before Serenity took off thinking Morgan doesn't want her enough to stay on land. Morgan thought this is for the best since he can't raise a family on a ship. Also, we get to know more about Morgan's past; about his English father, who was a lord but left it all to marry a colonial lady. They both loved each-other very much. Morgan's sister had a very sad ending but I won't go into any details. I liked Morgan as a lovesick puppy but the book was lacking the liveliness I was hoping for after reading Master of Seduction.
But even among all these, I liked some of the secondary characters such as Barney and his old bird Pesty, Cookie and his son, Kit and the others. I liked reading about Jack and Lorelei's life, though I didn't read much on how their life's getting along, if they had any children later and so on. The last 2/3 chapters of the book I liked better than the rest, which was pretty dragging, confusing and boring. I really thought Morgan could've been an adorable hero and if Serenity didn't vacillate from TSTL to non-TSTL, it could've been a better book. In the end, I'll give it a 2.5 stars with a heavy heart
PS: There is a note Morgan sends Serenity while they were on the ship. It was very sweet and beautiful. Had to mention it. :)
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