Jove, $5.99, ISBN 0-515-12984-4
Historical Romance, 2001
Someone said there’s only one way to write a pirate romance: a wrongly-maligned nobleman-turned-pirate kidnaps the daughter/wife-to-be of his enemy and they fall in love. It’s a formula that harks back to the dark ages of romance, and My Lord Pirate is no different.
Nobleman-turned-pirate? Check. Say hi to Talon Drake (yeah, that’s his name, I’m not joking). His family was executed under the orders of Regan Welles’s father, and now he is systematically destroying the Welles. The final revenge would be kidnapping the son’s wife-to-be and marry her himself. Which leads us to…
The kidnapped heroine. Actually, Regan Welles is kidnapped by accident. The pirates think her the wife-to-be of her half-brother. I do applaud at her firing a bullet into Talon at the end of the first chapter, but alas, being pawed by Talon changes her life. She couldn’t bear to see him executed. Oh, the pain! Never mind that she thinks that he killed her parents, he is such a tragic figure… could there be a reason for his nastiness? Let her try to think of some excuses for him.
While she is witnessing Talon’s execution party, the pirates stage a rescue. Naturally, the law enforcers are inept, so Regan really gets kidnapped for good.
What happens next is like reading a recipe list of the formula. Let’s see, the accessories – we can’t do without the protective old man who looks after our hero and tries to matchmake our hero to our heroine, can we? Then there’s the intrepid cabin boy. Although the crew of Talon aren’t exactly Miss Manners when it comes to being nice and orderly, they don’t behave like pirates either.
Along the way, Talon is impressed by Regan’s feisty nature, which amounts to lots of bluster before puckering her lips for his manly kisses. She makes a lot of excuses for him after hearing his Sad Family Story, until finally she brainwashes herself into falling in love with him. Or is it with his past? Either way, I don’t know.
And naturally, the heroine’s family has to be sacrificed and made into corrupt villains, so that our heroine can run off with the now-cleared-of-his-sins hero with a clear conscience. Besides, our heroine never likes her aunt anyway, so good riddance, old bag!
