Customer Reviews

Destiny's Daughter

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read all the posted reviews of Destiny's Daughter and was interested enough by them (even the negative ones made it sound very intriguing!) to actually read the book itself. Am I ever glad I did! Destiny's Daughter is a truly brilliant, well-written romance that kept me glued to the pages all the way through! The book follows a single story - a search for the missing Knights Templar treasure (not the Holy Grail, as somebody else posted) - in both contemporary and historical times. Its heroine and hero, Bryony and Hamish, attempt to find the treasure in today's time, while at the same time trying to keep from being killed by a secret group (like the Freemasons or Rosicrucians) of chilling conspirators, who have been manipulating world events for centuries and want the treasure for themselves. Far from wandering around aimlessly, Bryony and Hamish follow a set of clues left behind by Bryony's murdered father, along with other clues they gradually uncover and deduce on their own as they travel from place to place, not at first knowing what it is they are looking for, so investigating whatever they think might be of help to them as the plot unfolds. Their idea to expose the conspirators on the Internet is excellent, not stupid, since the group's entire existence and operations are based on secrecy and keeping themselves unknown to the world at large. Once exposed, they have no longer have any reason to kill Bryony and Hamish. Bryony and Hamish's dialog *is* intelligent but realistic - yes, real people who are interested in all the controversial ideas proposed in this book really do talk exactly this way - and, as someone else posted, Bryony and Hamish do feed off each other in a way that is witty and a lot of fun. The book draws on a number of ideas, everything from mythology to angels and extraterrestrials, and cleverly, through past and present, weaves all these different threads into a speculative but fascinating tapestry. I couldn't put this book down and stayed up all night long to finish reading it! I too gave a thumbs-up for the ending, which tied all the loose ends up beautifully and successfully. I heard the music - and it was both sad and inspiring. How very refreshing to read such an intelligent, suspenseful, and genuinely thoughtful, well-researched and presented romance. If you want something entirely out-of-the-ordinary, ambitious, and outstanding, Destiny's Daughter is a must-read! Thank you, Ms. Brandewyne, for this marvelous book!

This book was difficult to read and falls far short of her previous works. Although I am familiar with all of the historical references and the speculative ones as well I was falling asleep while trying to get through (and keep track of) all of the extraneous information. The plot was really thin and weak. I respect Ms Brandewyne as a writer and have read almost all of her books but this one is a real disappointment. I was tempted to quit reading it several times but refused to admit defeat!

I thought this was a wonderful book. The plot is interesting and quick paced (sometimes I was overwhelmed by the rapid evolution of the characters' thoughts). Although the romance part was practically nonexistent, the concept behind the book was enough to keep me reading. I was blown away--really. I just finished reading the book and can't get over it. The last few sentences really inspired me. I applaud Ms Brandewyne for taking a tricky concept and doing all the necessary research in order to make it work. I am in complete awe.

The basic outline for this story sounds intriguing. However, the end result is a long history lesson which drags on through the ages. I have always enjoyed Rebecca Brandewyne's work but this one fell short of the mark. While the history imparted throughout the book could have been interesting and added depth to the story, in the end it just ended up being tedious reading and not worth the money.

What starts out as a creaper definitely turns into a eye-opening, wake-up-and-watch-out-for-the-bad-guys-trying-to-run-you-off-the-road! Well, that is what I was practically screaming at the book. The action, dialogue and content between Bryony and Hamish reminded me of the old t.v. shows like Remington Steele or Moonlighting which kept a person glued to the tube.

I truly enjoyed the walk/run through history and how others came across the treasure box. Trying to keep up the Hamish and Bryony and the theories, practices and theologies were mind boggling. Granted, because I am NOT a historian just an avid reader, I, too, often got a bit lost among all the facts and theories. Still, it was so much fun watching these two feed off each other's ideas. One just kept rolling into another. Okay, so even romancic parts were steamy enough to make the pages soggy! :-)

I gave a thumbs-up for the ending. With the grace of the Gods, ExtraTerrestrials, God himself, not to forget the advent of technology, these two were able to protect themselves from any "Divine" retribution delivered as they did to Bryony's dad. It is truly comforting, if not only in a book, knowing justice can be served; and that good triumps over evil once more.

So if you love history, suspense, romance and a challenge to the brain, I highly recommend this one to anyone willing to accept on faith as well as fact! :-)

This book cannot compare to her previous work. I found the characters uninteresting and somewhat flat. The villians were amateurish and not at all intimidating. I am not a professional reviewer by any means, but I read about 15 books a month--I gave up on this one 3/4 of the way through. Yawn.

"Destiny's Daughter" started out O.K., but the last 125 pages put me to sleep TWICE. If I slept this often when reading, I'd be the best rested person in North America.

Byrony and Hamish had potential to be an interesting romance couple to read about. Byrony was an intelligent archologist. Hamish was a quirky English professor. They seemed like they would be interesting. But this potential was completely lost in Brandewyne's historical expositions throughout the book. Byrony and Hamish were not defined very much. And the action of the book revolved more around historical references than their love story.

While there is no doubt that the book was intelligent from a historical point of view, it should not have been marketed as a romance because ultimately that was not what it was. It would have been better to just be described as "general fiction".

Every couple of chapters, there would be a chapter regarding where the "mysterious book" is throughout time, passing through the hands of Pandora, King Herod, et. cet. I did not like this device, because I couldn't bring myself to care about any of these "historical" characters because I knew that they were just an outlining device to keep track of where the book was.

Even the sex scenes in the book were pretty cliche for Brandewyne. I imagine I've even read the exact wording in some of her other books. I just didn't feel engaged at all.

However, don't get me wrong. In the 1980s, Rebecca Brandewyne was one of the best romance writers around. What happened? Try reading ON A MOON-DARK MOOR or AND GOLD WAS OURS. These were exciting passionate romances that were hard to put down. Eventually, Brandewyne started writing science fiction romances which I found to be a bit of a turnoff. And then she deteriorated into historical theses. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Brandewyne takes an interesting and well-researched idea, namely that all of the world's legends and stories are interconnected throughout history, and then sets out to have her romantic protagonists "prove" this theory against a background of romantic intrigue. The end result is a book that has all the trappings of a highly intelligent, well-researched novel, but is really a plodding, incomprehensible mess.

Bryony and Hamish talk to each other as if they are reading out of an encyclopedia (page after page of block text that read like an expository essay), and together the two of them jump dizzyingly from one legend to the next with no external evidence to support their conclusions. The reader is constantly thinking, "That sounds really smart, but I have no idea what what they just said, how it connects to the rest of the 'clues', and most importantly how the heck they managed to come up with it." Supposedly Byrony and Hamish's randomly driving around to various historical sites and taking copious notes on "everything" leads to some incontrovertable proof, but for allegedly well-educated scholarly types, Hamish and Byrony do little in the way of supporting their theories except try to get themselves killed for "knowing too much".

While Hamish and Bryony are continually trying to astound readers with their intellectual acumen in their "discussions" with each other, their ultimate plan makes no sense at all. They spend their time developing these amazing theories, but only half-heartedly try to decipher the clues that will solve the entire matter which have been *given to them* by her father (the supposed expert on the topic at hand who tells that them everything they need to know is on a couple of CDs). With their very lives in danger, Bryony and Hamish's master plan to thwart their enemies is to write up *a website* that will expose their enemy's secrets to the whole world! These two geniuses assume that a) their website will be immediately accessed by intelligent people all over the word, b) that everyone who reads it will assume their wild accusations are true, and c) that after "exposing" them online, the baddies will have no power over them and consequently leave them alone. Wouldn't you think that any organization that has thrived for hundreds of years in covert secrecy would want to exact revenge for having all their secrets revealed? Evidentally not in this world.

In short, this book is obviously well-researched by the standpoint of knowledge about history and lore, but *Destiny's Daughter* ultimately fails because the characters' only redeeming quality is that they are mere mouthpieces for these fantastic theories. This isn't enough to carry any novel, let alone a romance, especially when in the end the reader has no reason to feel that the main characters are either amazingly intelligent or in any way interesting.

After reading all those glowing tributes on the book jacket I thought I'd found a winner. It's opening chapters were intriguing but soon after that didactic boredom set in.
Real people do not talk like that! The main characters sounded as if they had somone's thesis in their hands and were quoting from it. The book is like a cross between Stephen Hawking, Erich von Daniken and James Bond. Brandewyne used the love story merely as a frame for some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.