Review: The Rogue Pirate’s Bride by Shana Galen

A fantastic high-seas adventure bringing together passion, action and laughter in a perfect storm

Rogue Pirates BrideThe evil pirate Captain Cutlass brutally murdered Raeven Russell’s fiance, and she’s vowed revenge. The daughter of a British naval Admiral, Raeven’s handy with a sword and dagger, so when she finds Cutlass she attacks.

And discovers he’s more than she bargained for.

Captain Cutlass is really the Marquis de Valère, who was a young boy when his family was murdered during the French revolution. (This novel is the third in the Sons of the Revolution series. The first is The Making of a Duchess, and the second is The Making of a Gentleman.) He went to sea and became a privateer, working hard to seek vengeance of his own until he meets and accidentally kidnaps Raeven and suddenly has the British navy after him.

I loved the interplay between Raeven’s anger at Bastien for killing her fiance, and her undeniable attraction to him. Kill him or kiss him – she wants to do both, and the combination is explosive.

In one scene, he gives her both options, lying on his berth in his ship and presenting her with his throat.

Her heart was thudding in her chest now, and her palms were sweaty. She hefted the sword, and it felt suddenly heavy and slippery against her damp skin. But she held on and walked to the berth. He squinted up at her. “Not with the sword.”

She’d been staring at that swath of bronze skin, at the corded muscles of his neck. “What?”

“If you’re going to do this, it’s personal. Make it personal. Use your dagger.”

She had the dagger strapped to her thigh under the thin dress, and she knew it would feel even more familiar in her hand than the sword. She looked at his neck, could almost see the pulse beating steadily there. With one flick of her dagger, she could end that pulse, that life, just as Cutlass had ended Timothy’s life.

She reached for the dagger, aware he watched as she lifted her skirt and unsheathed the blade.

“If I’m going to die, at least my last view was pleasant,” he drawled.

Raeven is a wonderful combination of competence and insecurity. Her skills with various weapons help her save Bastien’s life at least as many times as he saves hers. But she’s also spent her entire life on a ship with her father – her only family. When it comes to having the confidence to choose to leave her father and trust Bastien’s love for her, she wavers in a way that makes her feel all the more realistic to me.

I highly recommend The Rogue Pirate’s Bride. It has absolutely everything an adventurous romance should: characters who sparkle with wit, pulsing tension, and almost non-stop action. You’ll wish you could find a rogue pirate of your own!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Heat: 4 (Scorching)

4 comments

Leave a Reply to Kat Latham Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.