Heart of the Tiger [Mass Market Paperback]

This is the sequel to The Golden Leopard and the second in Lynn Kerstan's Big Cat Trilogy. In it, we are re-introduced to Mira Holcombe and her invalid father, who had played a part in helping Hugo and Jessica locate the Golden Leopard in the previous book. Like it, Heart of the Tiger has strong elements of Indian folklore and some Indian characters who are central.to the story. Our hero this time is Michael Keynes, younger brother of the execrable Duke of Tallant and whose sole aim in life is to kill.his brother. To that end, Michael has spent a great deal of time in India, making his own considerable fortune while at the same time ruining his brother's business interests there.

The Duke of Tallant is unscrupulous, ruthless and utterly evil - not for nothing is he known as "The Beast".
On his return to England, Michael meets Mira, whose intentions towards the duke are the same as his - and is immediately fascinated by her. She also feels powerfully drawn to Michael, but sees him as a dangerous distraction and tries to avoid him at all costs. She also feels 'damaged' because of an incident that took place years before. It's easy to guess what happened, but what keeps one's interest is gaguing how much Michael knows and what Mira will tell him.

There is a murder-mystery element.to the story, but this isn't a whodunnit and it's difficult to say much more than that without completely spoiling the plot, other than that the murder is a catalyst for a chain off events that serve to show just how far Michael and Mira will go to protect each other.

I found Heart of the Tiger to be a real page-turner and had to read late into the night to finish it! Michael is gorgeous, dangerous and utterly compelling and Mira is more than up to his weight and doesn't let him get away with anything. The sparks fly when they are together yet there is a lot of tenderness between them, too.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and am really looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy, The Silver Lion.

With thanks to Bell Bridge Books and NetGalley for the review copy.

Now then, this was something a little bit different. I don't tend to read many Regency Romances but something about the blurb piqued my interest for this one so I gave it a whirl and I'm very glad that I did!

This book breaks all the rules of Regency Romance as I've come to know them. Doesn't it know that the hero and heroine are supposed to meet within the first 20 pages, and then the hero is meant to be transfixed by her heaving bosom, and she's meant to turn into a blob of simpering girl goo every time he comes near. Yada, yada, pithy dialogue, blah-di-blah, several sex scenes involving creamy thighs, quivering members and throbbing manhoods, some other stuff, fiddle-di-dee, happily ever after - the end.

That is how it is supposed to go! Those are <u>The Rules</u>! But that's not what happened here. Far from it.

Instead, what we got were two flawed but fascinating main characters. In particular, the heroine, Mira, had a lot going on internally. She has some stuff to work through before she can even consider members of the opposite sex. So for this reason the romance had to wait quite a while to get going (which made perfect sense in context) while she sorted through some of her problems and issues.

Mira and Micheal are two people who share the same goal--vengeance and the all-consuming need to kill Michael's older brother, the Duke of Tallant. And on the surface, that's all they have in common. But as we go deeper we see that they are more like kindred spirits than they could ever have guessed. Both characters are a dichotomy in and of themselves. Michael, at the start of the book, has just returned from India to England after a decade-long absence. He outwardly looks like a total barbarian compared to all the pomps of London, but underneath, much as he would deny it, he is a decent and good man. Whereas Mira looks like an angel on the outside; soft-spoken and altruistic, caring for her disabled father and turning down frequent offers of marriage to devote herself to her father's few remaining months of life. But underneath that façade, she is a woman filled only with thoughts of revenge and calculating cold-blooded murder.

Neither character was wholly good or bad, but they were definitely interesting and engaging.

Obviously, to find out why they want to kill the duke so much you'll have to read the book, but it's quite harrowing and heartbreaking and I'm just glad that Michael and Mira found each other in time.

I have to say, I loved the setting and all the Indian fables and stories that were thrown in via Michael's Sikh friend Hari. They were used sparingly, but were a nice (and again, different) addition. I also really enjoyed the dialogue, I thought that was very well done. And it was really endearing to read Michael's hopes and dreams through his narration, even though he was adamant he didn't deserve any of what he secretly wished for. All that was just too cute!

If I could wish for anything, I would have loved a few more intimate scenes. However, I would not have brought them forward to earlier in the book, I would simply wish for it to have been longer or to have had a nice epilogue. Particularly after the way things went the first time they were together!

I definitely recommend this book. I may be no expert on this genre, but I know good characters when I meet them, and they certainly were that.

4 Stars ★★★★
ARC provided by the publisher for an honest review