Heart of a Lion
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
She has once been a beautful noblewoman called lady Isabeau, betrothed at birth to the handsome squire Jared de Navarre. But all that changed when the Crusades began, and Isabeau was abducted, transported to the torrid climes of the Mideast, and sold...
Jared had journeyed east, vowing to stay until he found his lady...but there his hopes died and his heart hardened. Now called the Black Lion, he is a fierce mercenary, about to begin a dangerous mission in the empty employ of a mysterious black-veiled renegade warrior...
Jared never guessed that Isabeau had survived, fleeing the erotic realms of a harem to become this legendary desert rebel. Now, face to face, Isabeau believes Jared can never accept the things she has done, the woman she has become. And as death and betrayal swirl around them, their chance for love may be destroyed...unless they learn that fighting for each other is the most important battle of all...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The melodramatic tenor of Fields's (Marrying Jezebel) medieval-era cloak-and-dagger caper is surpassed only by the sheer implausibility of its plot. When 16-year-old Jared de Navarre discovers that Lady Isabeau de Lyon, his eight-year-old charge and betrothed, is missing, he vows never to return until he has found her. Sixteen years later, Jared, now a mercenary named the Black Lion, meets with the Shadow Hunter, a notorious assassin who is none other than Isabeau disguised as a man. Although she recognizes Jared instantly, she keeps him in the dark as to her identity and hires him to aid her in perpetrating a theft from Malik al-Fayed, the man in whose harem she served after being abducted. Isabeau joins Jared and his band as they travel to Baghdad, but their journey is so protracted that only the most earnest of readers will manage to endure it. Although the pace picks up when Isabeau reveals herself to Jared, their romance, despite being reinforced by undying declarations of love, is unconvincing. In addition, Fields's characters have all the subtlety and intelligence of caricatures; at one point, Isabeau sneaks into Malik's palace to offer her own life for Jared's, and when Malik rejects her proposal, she performs a seductive dance for him in the hopes that he'll change his mind. Just as Isabeau's performance fails to sway the all-too-sinister Malik, this outrageous tale doesn't succeed in engaging the reader.
