To Treasure an Heiress (The Secrets of the Isles #2) by Roseanna M. White

  

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Christian Fiction
Genre: Mystery, Romance, Historical Romance, Clean Romance
Content: Clean

 

Beth Tremayne has always been drawn to adventure. During her childhood, she fed that desire by exploring every inch of the Isles of Scilly. As an adolescent, she dreamed of love in London's ballrooms. Now, stumbling across an old map on her family's property, she's found more adventure than she ever craved in the hunt for pirate treasure. Unfortunately, Beth can't escape the attentions of her family's guest, Lord Sheridan.

Sheridan has spent years pursuing whatever archaeological interests caught his imagination. And when he discovers that Beth's search connects with one of his favorite pirates of history, he can't help getting involved. Plus, he finds her irresistible, even though she insists he stole a prized possession of hers.

As they work together following different clues and drawing closer to danger, they start to piece together a story of tragic love and piratical adventure. But the true surprise is the treasure they discover in each other.

 

I've read several books by this author that have become favorites. The Shadows Over England and The Codebreakers series in particular are favorites, but unfortunately this book just didn't work for me. I read the first book in this series and gave it 3 stars because I liked quite a few things about it, even though I found the overall story slow and a little boring at times. This one is not only slow to progress, but I also found the characters to be annoying. From the beginning, the main character, Beth is very angry with Sheridan, who is obviously going to end up being the love interest at some point, and I totally get why she's so angry with him. Despite the fact that I get it, she still comes off a bit bratty at times.

Then there is Sheridan, who doesn't return something to Beth that, in all honesty, he should return. He also thinks he's in love with her and going to marry her one day, after knowing her for a very short time, and it seems based solely on the fact that he finds her to be so beautiful. At one point in the book, they decide to go treasure hunting together, and it ends disastrously, with Sheridan mad and jealous, and Beth purposely dumping him in the water from the boat on the way back, because he won't listen to her side of things. I really didn't blame her for doing it, even if she probably shouldn't have, because Sheridan's behavior was out of line.

To top it all off, Sheridan's inner monologue about the whole incident kind of infuriated me. He starts telling himself that he won't marry her one day, because she is probably the kind of girl that will just lead him on and then dump him. Um, what?? Beth has never once indicated that she even likes Sheridan in that way. She's been angry with him the whole time. But this guy builds up this fantasy in his head, and suddenly it's the truth. It also bothered me that Beth gets reprimanded for her behavior several times in the book when I think others should be as well, and they are not.

I kept trying to push myself to get through this book, because I figured it would get better, but the characters start out unlikable, the story is slow and uninteresting, and at this point I just can't bring myself to care anymore. So, I'm abandoning it, and I'm not even halfway through. Overall, this book just doesn't have the feel to it that this author's other books have, and I think that's true, so far, of the whole series, even though book one was more likable to me.

Since this is a companion series and the characters and stories are linked, I doubt I will read the last book in the series. Hopefully, the next series the author writes will be a better fit for me.