Customer Reviews

Sheik Protector (Harlequin Intrigue)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sheikh Karim Adbullah is called the "Dark Sheikh" and it's no wonder, not just his physical appearance which include multiple scars, a facial scar on his eye which had made him blind and additional scars on body, mainly his back. His identical twin has been intentionally killed and now he finds that he's not only faced with finding his killer; plus a woman he met in he US claims his twin is the father of her unborn child.

Everything within days change; the pregnancy, his attraction to her, finding his brother's killer and now his enemies want the woman and Karim dead.

Their journey is full of action, turmoil, danger, sexual attraction and mystery. On top of everything else, coupled with the danger, their attraction leaps off of the pages of this book and just reading about the "dark sheikh" softening and falling for Julia is very sweet and romantic.

What I loved about this particular sheikh story was it was honour bound not just Karim the born sheikh but the lovely Julia who was abandoned at a young age, raised in foster care and who had a definite need to belong. In the end, her sense of honour shines in this very lovely romantic love story. Again Dana Marton "dazzles" her readers with her Sheik Protector.

His past is filled with loss and pain. His soul is filled with revenge. Sheik Karim Abdullah is NOT your average prince. As a child, he survived assassination attempts, which cost him the sight in one eye and left numerous scars on his body. As a grown man, he stays to himself and works for his tribe, managing their oil business. But the murder of Aziz, his twin brother, brings Karim out of the office and pits him against gathering enemies.

Into the middle of this dangerous hunt, and with attacks on Karim's life intesifying, comes waltzing Julia Gardner, claiming to be pregnant with Aziz's baby. Karim knows one thing: he will not let her stain Aziz's honor. But as it turns out, he way underestimates the beauty he plans on keeping locked up in his palace until he can prove paternity.

Soon, they are fleeing for their lives across the desert, in danger not only from their enemies but the anger of disturbed ancient spirits. At the beginning, all Karim wanted was to prove Julia a liar and a gold digger. But as passions flair, now all he wants is to love and protect her.

A fantastic adventure/love story.

What makes this book great is the gift Ms Marton has of making you connect with the characters and feeling involed with the story making this the must read!

It was not uncommen for women to come to Beharrain after one of his brother's trips overseas to try and trap him he thinks no diffrent to Julia but it is his duty to protected her while he finds the truth and who killed his brother and is trying to kill them but Julia has other ideas!

Julia came to Beharrain after an out of character fling left her pregnant only to find out that Aziz is dead and thanks to his twin brother Sheik Kaherim she can not leave the country! She will stop at nothing to get out and fast!

The Girl: Julia Gardner, a charity operative, who arrives in the Fake Arab Country of Beharrain preggers and on a mission to contact the father, who just happens to be Karim's dead brother, Aziz. She's hormonal and emotional and really a complete idiot, even though Karim keeps thinking she's smart and stuff long before she actually does something intelligent. She also has the ability to be out in 100+ degree heat, get thrown to the ground with a car bomb exploding behind her, have the rampant adrenaline rush of driving a crowded highway with bad guys shooting at her (which I imagine would make a girl sweat), and yet still smell of vanilla and jasmine at the end of the day to make our hero horny.

The Guy: Karim Abdullah aka "The Dark Sheik." He's been in danger since his childhood because he happens to be a prince in the ruling family of some Arabic Ruritania (which also happens to be ruled by a U.S.-born queen called Noor. Sorry, *Dara*). Because of all the assassination attempts, he's vowed never to marry and bears many scars and one blind eye.

The Setup: Julia gets the bad news about Aziz and wants to leave Fake Arab Country, but Karim will do anything to preserve the spawn legacy of his dead brother. Julia's not too keen on staying, but she doesn't have much opportunity to leave because a fanatical imam named Mustapha is on Karim's trail with guns and bombs a-blazing to get his hands on some ancient pagan statues Aziz found on one of his archaeological digs. For religious reasons, they are Teh Bad and must be destroyed. There's sandstorms, sprays of bullets, raging hormonal fits, kidnappings, and peeing into a jar before the bad guy gets his just desserts and our hero and heroine get their "Five Years Later" HEA.

The Good Stuff: Um, not all that much. I did like the part where Julia and Karim go to the cave where Aziz found the statues and there was some underwater caverns they swam through and it was a little Indiana Jones-y, but for the most part it was pretty meh.

My Gripes: It's not often that the heroine is so self-aware: "I must be too stupid to live," she says at one point. I don't think this woman takes a breath without pondering her poor childhood as a foster child, or the sudden upswing of hormones, or naval-gazing past life experiences in the midst of "Move your F****ING ass!" danger. While barreling along a highway with bad guys on her tail, a bleeding hero in the passenger seat, and a blown-out back window, she manages to successfully navigate a stick shift and thinks "Yippee!" and we also get her recollection that she learned stick shifts from a boy back in high school only so she could make out with him. Too many times the action got interrupted by mundane thoughts that didn't move the plot anywhere, including thoughts about those prenatal hormones. The hormones....the hormones......

So all in all, very blah. I'm rapidly forming the opinion that the older Harlequin contemporaries were better-written (except for Carole Mortimer, of course - she's utter crap), because the recent ones are pretty underwhelming. The prose nearly insults my intelligence on occasion.

Harlequin Check List
* pregnant heroine (with bonus family/abandonment issues)
* hero with emotional AND physical scars
* villain who goes medieval on our H/h's butts for a dumb reason
* hero from a different culture who acts in a familiar and comforting Western manner
* hero remarks upon heroine's intelligence constantly, even though there's little of it in evidence
* Super saccharine HEA with a leap in time, a messy toddler about, and another bun in the oven