Karen Marie Moning
Beyond the Highland Mist
Highlander, Book #1

Review brought to you by OBS staff member Heidi

The Hawk is known all around for being a great warrior and a legendary lover.  He’s never met a woman who didn’t want to bed him.  When the Fairy King Finnbheara finds out that the Hawk even drew the Fairy Queen’s attentions he decides to plan his own kind of revenge for the warrior.

King Finnbheara has the court fool go into the future and find a woman that will reject Hawk, but is so beautiful that Hawk will fall in love with her.  The fool finds the lovely Adrienne who has been hurt by a beautiful man and therefore has sworn off of them.  They deliver her to the Comyn clan where the daughter that was betrothed to the Hawk has been killed by her father and they marry Adrienne off to Hawk instead claiming she is the deceased Janet.

Adrienne is immediately attracted to Hawk when she meets him, but is difficult towards him because of how she was hurt by her ex.  Hawk is determined to seduce her and make her his wife in every way while Adrienne uses the black smith, Adam Black, to make Hawk jealous.

Eventually, Adrienne gives in to her feelings for Hawk, but is taken away from him by Adam with a threat to Hawk and his family if Adrienne doesn’t comply.  Now it is up to Hawk to get over his grief and find a way to get his wife back once and for all.

I was introduced to Karen Marie Moning’s writing when I stumbled upon the Fever series, which I loved!  So when I heard that Fever was a spin-off of the Highlander series I knew I had to give it a shot.  I was happy to see it started out with the same fairy queen that was in Fever, but my excitement was quickly trampled with this predictable lackluster story.

Let’s start off with the characters.  Hawk was too perfect to be believable.  He was a great warrior, a great lover, could build this great castle and do great woodwork and the best falconer around.  He was also a great big jerk when it came to Adrienne trying to force her to love him even resorting to tactics he uses to train his falcons.  Then, there was Adrienne.  She was your typical scorned woman who has sworn off of all beautiful men.  She’s in love with him, but won’t let him know it and instead pretends to be in love with another man.  I found her to be pig-headed and annoying.  And if I have to listen to Tavis say: “I say” one more time I’m going to hurt somebody.  The only character that I even half liked was Hawk’s mom who wasn’t even in the book that much.

There were no real surprises in this book.  Boy and girl meet with an instant attraction, but girl won’t give in to her feelings.  When she finally does another person tears them apart and it’s up to the strong sexy man to save the day, they have a baby and then they live happily ever after.  I can sum up this book in one word BOR-ING!  I’m glad that I read the Fever series first because if this had been my introduction into Moning’s writing I don’t think I could have ever read another book of hers.  I’ve heard that this series gets better in later books, but I’m not sure I have the patience to find out.