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It's hard to enjoy, much less like, a book in which I thoroughly detest one of the two main characters. It makes it even worse that the novel is named after her so I don't even have a hope that she might somehow be offed before the end and I can be rid of her. The only reason I even bothered to finish it was so that I could write a fully-informed review. Also, I try not to swear in reviews but...this one? Can't be helped.

Shanna is so unlikable. Actually, that's putting it nicely. I got so sick of hearing how pretty she is look-wise because she's such a nasty and disgusting person on the inside. She's a straight up bitch and I hated her more than I think I've ever hated a character in any book I've ever read. I was feeling bad for Ruark for a fair bit of the novel but I stopped after a while. Why? Because he's such a damned doormat. Over and over and over again Shanna treats him like shit and walks all over him and he just goes crawling back to her. She berates him continuously and he just casts it all to the wind and lays himself down before her, like the doormat that he is, to be trod upon once again. The worst thing is that the author writes him so that he knows all her faults and calls her out on them yet loves her anyway. He calls her a coddled-brat and a prudish snob (praise the lord, hallelujah, etc etc etc...to that!) but that doesn't deter him from loving her.

And that's what confuses me. I don't know why he loves her. Other than her looks (got so sick of hearing about how ~beautiful~ she is), she's a dirty, rotten, nasty person on the inside. Honestly. She's such a bitch-- such a bitch omg--to him and he loves her. They make a bargain in the beginning and he holds up his end yet she deceives him and doesn't hold up her own. Every encounter with him has her calling him all sorts of names and he just takes it. When she finds herself being reluctantly attracted to him, she responds by dressing to the nines and wanting to shame and put him in his place because of the way he dresses and his station (as a bondsman). She sleeps with him but then later turns around and says he took advantage of her ("but tossed me on the bed and once more took advantage of me" and "you crept into my chambers in the dark of night and took advantage of the slumber still clinging to my eyes"). OH and she straight up accuses him of attempted-rape (and only feels "a tiny inkling of remorse"). She knew what she was doing when she approached Pitney (after he said they'd done Ruark wrong and would not be party to his abuse any longer) and she did it anyway simply because she was angry (and didn't even give him a second to explain that he was being FALSELY ACCUSED). Then, when they're captives to the pirates and he saves her more than once from being taken advantage of (kills a man in the process, btw), her response is being a cold and teasing and taunting bitch to him. Now, I'm not saying she should up and give her body over to him because he helped her out while risking his own life, I'm just saying that her teasing and flaunting her body at him and then giving him the cold shoulder is god damned cruel.

And you know what? During the entire ordeal he suffers and never once takes advantage of her. Not once.

And then he claims to love her.

Ruark got to his feet, counting himself far luckier than any man on the island, despite what they might have termed poor luck in being imprisoned for murder and sold into bondage. In truth, if he hadn't been in the gaol, he never would have married Shanna, and he counted all the abuse he had suffered there well worth the gain of such a wife.

Oh, Ruark...



She's also so hot and cold to him throughout most of the novel. She sleeps with him one second, and then derides him the next. Even Ruark calls her out on it: "How quickly you chasten me, as if you're sorely set upon." Like, nine times out of ten, he doesn't even have to incite her into anger because she does it herself most of the time and for no reason what so ever! Some of the time she calls attention to her own body (he calls her beautiful and her response is: "I feel ravished every time you look at me.") and then is all HOW DARE YOU when he makes some salacious mark towards it. She knows how he is and what he's like but acts all maidenly and shocked when he makes a remark that drew attention to her body in the first place.

She also gets jealous when other women take notice of Ruark and then she gets mad at him over it. Ruark is jealous and upset when Billingsham pursues Shanna, but he never once takes it out on her. He brings it up and is angry (and that's only in response to a tirade from her), yes, but he never pulls her aside to go in on her the way she does to him and holds it against her--like she does with him. He calls her out more than once on her jealousy. He asks her what he is to her -- either a husband or not a husband. If he is her husband, then she has a claim to jealousy. But, if not, then she has no right to call him out if he decides to seek favours elsewhere since she, as his wife, denies him and their bond as husband and wife. I'm not one for cheating spouses, but honestly...he's right. What right does she have to jealousy when she turns around and calls him a rutting knave and rake and cad and denies being his wife.

I was happy with Ruark called her out on this:

(view spoiler)["Shanna, love." Ruark checked the priming in both pistols and laid them down again. "You have oft declared that I am no husband and that you are widowed full and true."

"If that be the case," he leaned close and spoke into her face with almost a snarl on his lips, "then, my love, what claim do you have on me? Why do you defame me loudly for this supposed taking of another? You gave me naught to say, no simple chance of denial, but set your hound on me. All that goes beyond that day, my love, must rest upon your pretty head, for had I not been cast asea by your anger, none of this would have come to pass. A crew of men would have been at your house thus to protect it, and close at hand another score or more to raise arms and set these curs upon their heels. Now what say you, my lovely? Am I your husband? Or am I free? And if the last it be, then why should you at every turn set upon me like a jealous vixen on her mate? Do I stray from you? Or am I some toy pulled along on a string meant to perform when milady would turn and play, but ever on the string?" (hide spoiler)]

But, then the author had Shanna completely ignore what he said and, instead, turned around and made it all about poor little ol' Shanna and how she's in such a difficult position and how bad she's got it etc etc etc.



Just stfu.



Later on, he calls out her high-and-mighty manner and I was ready to give him a standing ovation:

(view spoiler)[Ruark's insides wrenched with the coldness of her tone. "Dammit, Shanna! Do you think if I had been the chooser, that I would have chosen you?"

Struck dumb by his statement, Shanna stared at him.

Ruark flung an arm wide, encompassing the sea that stretched endlessly into the horizon and sneered, "What were you? The Goddess Shanna from Mount Olympus, raised upon that pedestal of your own construction, that all men must approach you from beneath your level. The haughty Shanna, beautiful, untouched, pure, who strolls this earth for but a pressing whim and sighs for that great knight upon a charger, that perfect man who will snatch her from this squalor and take her to some hidden Eden and there with dovelike tones of adoration meekly serve her every wish. Hah!" Ruark snorted. "Beware, my love. That perfect man might also seek a perfect woman."

He turned away, his brow black with rage while Shanna stared at him, confused and not knowing the reason for this attack.

"What do you say?" she demanded, much stirred by his accusations. "I but held myself for the man of my own choosing, and, God willing, I will yet find that man."

Ruark whirled and looked at her in wide amazement. Then his scowl darkened thunderously. "You held yourself too high, Shanna. Of course each man has some flaw and once you found it, you rejected him. What did you make of yourself, pray tell? A prime wife? Hardly! A gentle mate to share a man's life? Nay! Rather the regal Shanna." He answered his own question. "A challenge to any man, a goal for a night's toss, and a mark well worthy of the game. That man who could shatter your wall of ice would be an instant hero to every bachelor. You were the high fortress to be assailed but once taken, worthless. You were a fortune to be gained, but of what value as a wife? A worthy man would seek that gentle dame who with calm and sweet repose would thus enrich his life. Have you then so greatly enriched mine? I was given as a slave to pirates at your command. Now your father thinks me not only a flown bondsman but a pirate, and he has in all likelihood placed a high reward upon my head. If taken by his men, I might yet find a rope my final unearned reward. And that because of you, my loving wife." (hide spoiler)]

Her response? "But do you say you love me?"

Fucking hell. Are you serious? Just...



I nearly laughed out loud when she had the audacity to say:

"You banter with my pride and toss about my honor lightly."

Oh, my. She has the nerve to mention honour? Sorry sweetie, but you forfeit any and all honour the minute you made a bargain for your body with a man and then proceeded to betray him on his return after he came through for you. OH, and then lied about the actual terms of your bargain. Just want to clarify that her honour wasn't lost in bargaining with her body (gotta do what you gotta do, yeah?), it was the deceit and betrayal on her behalf that followed. On top of that, she later claims that there was no bargain and it's false. She calls him names and belittles him. Sorry, but she gets no special thanks or credit for finally making good on a promise that she should've done so from the beginning.



I didn't blame him for how he went in on her after she says she refuses to bear his bastards. She deserved it.

Anytime during the novel that Shanna feels any sort of guilt or sadness, it's a result of what she's done to Ruark. She takes his problems and what he's gone through and makes it about herself and makes herself feel bad. Rather than feeling bad for Ruark and what he has to go through as a result of her deceit, she takes what he might be going through and is sad because of the guilt she feels. I didn't feel bad for her one bit during those times because she's the one that did him wrong and now she claims hurt feelings and guilt as a result? Ugh. It's always about how she's suffered as a result of what she's done to him rather than it being about how he's suffered as a result of what she purposefully did to him. Mercy...she takes everything from him (including his name) and can't even let the man keep his pain as his own.

During the entire book, I just couldn't help but feel that she's such an emotionally abusive partner/spouse. Over and over again we see her deny him sexually. When she does exalt him with her presence, she follows every encounter with name-calling and insults, berating and degradation. She disavows their martial vows but displays jealousy and uses it to further hold things against him. Hell, she's jealous over a relationship of his from nearly a decade ago! The entire novel is her stomping all over him while he cowers before her in hopes of just a morsel of her attention and favours. She also never admits her own wrongdoing. Pitney never actually learns of what her original bargain was. She's never taken to task nor does she apologize for falsely and vindictively accusing Ruark of attempted rape and having him sold to pirates as a result.

I usually like HEAs in books...but this one? I would've been much happier with the opposite. Ruark is a nice guy and does well by others and he deserved so much more. Yeah he's a doormat but he deserved better because she's a spiteful bitch who betrayed him, betrayed him and betrayed him some more. She's so undeserving of the HEA she got. She's clearly a terrible person through and through because even the other characters point out that she needs to do right by Ruark. But does she see it for herself? No. It's only because of the author's cheesily included delirium-speak that she suddenly does a one-eighty.

When she's at the Beauchamp household, she feels she should stand up for Ruark and claim him as her husband but doesn't because:

"The only thing that stilled her words was the fear that Gaylord would rush to his magistrate father to bear the news that a man he had condemned to hang was alive."

Yeah...uh, no. The author shows time and again that Shanna is as dumb as a rock considering how she's ~so surprised~ at having not realized how badly she's mistreated Ruark. She only "realizes" it when he speaks super coherently during his fever. As such, I think it's straight up bullshit that she'd have the foresight to even consider holding her tongue for that reason. No way. Nope. Not buying it. It was just the author's way of extending the drama more and dragging it out for pages and pages more and making Shanna seem ~smart~ when she's really just an idiot and a coward.



And ugh, Ralston and Billingsham both got what they had coming to them but Shanna gets off? She was worse than Ralston (at least Ralston got him out of gaol) and she gets a rich husband and a connection to a marquess?? Fucking hell.



This entire book was such a mixture of



and