GENRE: Romance / Science fiction (Futuristic)
PUBLISHED: Berkley Sensation, 2008
WHY THIS NOVEL: part of series
The back blurb:
“Dufleur Thyme knows that emotion has no place in scientific experiments, and she cannot allow distractions in her own surreptitious quest to redeem her father’s time reversal studies. For Saille T’Willow, time is running out. He’s the premier matchmaker of Celta, but has yet t o start the family he yearns for. Knowing that Defleur is his Heart-Mate, he sends out his HeartGift, hoping it will find its way to her and enable him to stake his claim.
Little does Saille realize that Dufleur keeps receiving his HeartGift – and rejecting it. She wants nothing to do with a Willow, the family that destroyed her father’s good name. But Saille is determined, and the attraction between them is undeniable. When one of her experiments imperils Saille’s position, Dufleur must make a choice: she can retreat to the solitude of her lab, or stand with the descendent of her enemy as his HeartMate…”
The setup for the conflict between the hero and the heroine in Heart Dance is great. Defleur and Saille come from families who are on bad terms with each other; the thing Dufleur wants most of all, the rehabilitation of her father’s name, endangers Saille’s position; and, as if these two things aren’t enough, Defleur has severe trust issues.
Saille became head of his house a few months ago after his grandmother put herself in a cryogenics tube to await a cure for her illness. All her life, she sought to thwart Saille, her heir, because after a long line of female heirs he was the first male heir. She hid his heart mate from him and severely damaged the reputation of his heart mate’s family to cause as much obstacles as possible between them.
Defleur is Saille’s heart mate and as a result of his grandmother’s intrigues, the reputation of her family is ruined and she is forbidden to work, that is experiment, with her family Flair – time. Defleur wants to clear her father’s name whose death in an explosion lead to the ban on the time Flair. He was working on a spell to reverse time to cure illness. Defleur picks up his work in secret, figuring the discovery of something this important will lead to the rehabilitation of her family. Her success would not only restore her father’s name and rehabilitate her family, she would also help Saille’s grandmother regain her place as head of the house, and in turn destroy Saille’s life. With all this, it doesn’t help that Dufleur has huge trust issues.
So Dufleur’s and Saille’s path to become a HeartMate couple is long and lined with obstacles, each of them with the potential to destroy their developing relationship. As I said, a great basis for conflict. Yet somewhere along my reading, I somehow didn’t care about the characters as much as at the beginning. I still had fun reading, but I wasn’t really engaged in the story. Apart from thinking that Dufleur’s actions in relation to her mother were not all that understandable, and liking that Dufleur and Saille were able to help each other, I’m afraid I can’t remember more of what I thought about the story and the characters. But then, I read it over two weeks ago. In my notes, it’s graded with 4(-)/5 so it couldn’t have been bad.
As with all the other novels in this series, there are a few new glimpses of the world Owens created on Celta. Behind the cutesy names and the possible danger of the Flair concept turning into a deus-ex-machina element, the world building in this series is well thought out and balanced with more and more fleshed out political and social relations.
I’ll read the next one, Tinne’s story, and then I’ll see.
Would I recommend this novel? Probably yes.
Would I read this novel again? Yes (as part of series).
Grade: 4- / 5
Books and Games 
October, 15, 2009
15 OctCurrently Reading
Juliana Garnett – The Scotsman
I started Juliana Garnett’s The Scotsman yesterday and I’m now on page 59. So far, it looks like another good read, maybe even better than her novel The Vow which I read recently. But I thought Juliana Garnett a good writer then so that’s not really a surprise for me.
The Scotsman is another medieval romance – yay! – and takes place on the Scottish Borderlands. It’s the time of Robert the Bruce and the Scottish battle for Independence. Catherine is the daughter of the English Earl of Warfield and Alexander Fraser’s younger brother was taken hostage by Warfield. Alex wants to get his brother back (he’s all the family he has left) and while he explores the surroundings of Warfield’s castle, he stumbles upon Catherine. When he realizes who the woman is, he takes her captive. He hopes to make a bargain with Warfield and exchange her for his brother. Only problem: Warfield holds his daughter in very low regard. She’s just a woman and as such has no use to him, especially compared to the use Alex’s brother gives him as leverage against the Scots.
The premise is familiar but Garnett makes it come alive. The hatred between Scots and English seems very real. If Catherine and Alex want to be together, they will have to overcome years of believing the other the worst kind of people. In fact, before they will think about being together, they first must overcome this to actually be able to fall in love with the other. And although they are attracted to each other nearly right away, it doesn’t look that they mistake this for love.
I think there are good times ahead!
Other things
Heart Fate was published last year but as it cost more than 10 €, I decided to wait. I very very rarely am willing to spend more than 10 € on a book. So when I looked again this weekend, it was still around 10€. Huh? I had thought that there would be a second edition by now, comparable in price to the ones they published before. So real bummer, still no Heart Fate for me.
Tags: "Celta" series, book comment, Juliana Garnett, Robin D. Owens