Now patriciar

Rewritten Review:I didn't really enjoy this novel for several reasons. I do have an issue with the idea of historical romance as it is, though, because of the way men (and women, and other) are portrayed in them. While I do understand that even a hundred years ago women in my country did not have the right to vote, it doesn't help the fact that I strongly dislike the sexist attitude of historical romance societies. (Then again, while not as strong, there are few romance protagonists -be they male or female or other- who aren't sexist, no matter the time period they live in.) Merely a few weeks after first reading Beyond the Highland Mist I already had forgotten a lot of things that had taken place and needed several summaries from other bloggers to remind myself. Neither the heroine nor the hero managed to captivate me, and parts of the content were almost repulsive. There is Hawk, the hero, who has slept with the faery queen, and supposed to be punished for that and being better in bed than the entirety of her kingdom, or something like that.So they tell Adam Black, who gets his own (rather dull) novel later in the series, to find a beautiful and intelligent woman and wed her to Hawk, for him to fall in love with. Of course, mentioned beautiful and intelligent woman also needs to be the one woman on earth to reject him. So what does Adam do? He finds our heroine.Adrienne, apparently hates men, because her ex-fiancee broke her heart and used her. Clever move on Adam's part to find a woman who is actually just bitter and jaded and could obviously be persuaded by inserting magic penis. But what the fuck, we need something to start this story, don't we?Now, here's the actual problem: I couldn't relate to either of the protagonists, which is freaking hilarious because I'm bitter and jaded and stupid as Adrienne is, and I have certain responsibilities towards my family as Hawk does. At times I felt like the editor-magic went to far with this and cut out important parts or that Moning didn't have enough pages to put everything in. I was left wondering, for example why they actually fell for each other in the first place: Does she like his 16th century attitude? I mean, truthfully, he is unrealistically non-sexist in comparison to what I've been taught in school with all the not-raping her and stuff, but regardless of that, how the fuck could those two fall in love?It gets to the point where Hawk decides that treating her like a falcon would be a good idea and it turns out to be just that. Taking something from her, he actually gets her gratitude when he gives it back to her. I'm pretty sure this is at least borderline abusive behaviour.Then there is the part where she is magically a virgin and had a bazillion dollars to flee from beforementioned fiancé. I mean, of course she is a virgin, all of Moning's Highlander heroines apparently are, and it's necessary for her to be, since she's a woman and her worth is dictated by the existence of something that doesn't even exist, but Jesus Christ, w h y? Not to mention the fact that her escape -getting past securities and such- would have been an exiting thing to read. But no, of course not.And here's the thing: The entire novel is about her WITH him, which is more or less okay, given that it's a romance novel, but they never talk about her world and life, about the century she used to live in, or anything but her present in the past with him. Which is frustrating.My expectations, when I read it for the first time, were the only reason why I gave this book more than two stars. I thought it was unfair of me to give it less when it was entirely possible that I disliked it because it wasn't a Fever-novel. In retrospect, I must admit that it was simply not a good read for me. It was disappointing, but beyond that, not enjoyable. Despite that I have continued reading the series (skipping the second novel and not having started the final one). I have a soft spot for time-travel, though that is the reason why I avoid it: It never quite lives up to my expectations. Then there is the fact that Moning wrote it, and that Adam Black did appear in the Fever series before, making it a crossover. Additionally to that, I hoped that it would give me answers regarding the Queen, though I must admit that I might not have read the books as attentionally as I should have for that to happen. ;)I'd only recommend this book to fans of historicals (with a few paranormal elements) who don't care too much about authentic situations OR to Fever-fanwhores like me. ;)