Heartmates are literally connected on a psychic level, and you don’t get to choose your Heartmate they’re out there somewhere, and you have to find them. The whole Heartmate concept is the fated-soulmate trope taken to the nth degree. I liked and empathized with her, though sometimes she needs to grow a little more backbone. Danith is an orphan and a commoner – and T’Ash’s Heartmate, though she doesn’t realize it for a while. Despite that, I didn’t find his cluelessness and autocratic manner at all endearing in fact, they often put my back up, in much the same way that they irritate Danith Mallow. To make things worse, he’s very domineering, though that is understandable given his background: he is a noble lord whose whole family was killed when he was young, and he spent his childhood and adolescence trying to survive in Downwind (the slums), so he’s pretty rough around the edges, and he hasn’t experienced much in the way of love and kindness. To begin with, Rand T’Ash is so awkward and inept, and so convinced his Heartmate will just fall into his arms and magically make everything better, that I just want to shake some sense into him. If not you’re not familiar with SF/F in general, it may take you a while to adjust and gain familiarity with the world, since on the whole, Owens avoids infodumps.īut this is a fantasy romance, and its there that I have a few problems with the book. Even many middle- and lower-class citizens have some degree of Flair, and significant Flair automatically ennobles the holder. Owens does a good job with the worldbuilding in the series as a whole, but it’s a little ragged in the first book. It’s a society where members of the leading Houses (something like Scottish clans) wield significant psychic powers, called Flair, which usually manifests in between one and three abilities or strengths. On the one hand, I love the world of Celta – a planet colonized primarily by Celts. They are HeartMates, but can T’Ash persuade his beloved to accept her destiny by his side? Review But T’Ash refuses to accept her rejection and sees it as a challenge instead. In a world where everyone is defined by their psychic ability, Danith has little, placing her at the opposite end of the social spectrum from T’Ash. Once a street tough, now a respected nobleman and artisan, he has crafted the perfect HeartGift, which, in the custom of the psychically gifted population of the planet Celta, is the way a man finds-and attracts-his wife…ĭanith Mallow is irresistibly drawn to the magnificent necklace on display in T’Ash’s shop, but she is wary of its creator, despite an overpowering attraction. 1, 2001Īll his life, Rand T’Ash has looked forward to meeting his HeartMate, with whom he could begin a family. Published by Berkley Publishing Group on Dec.

Heartmate robin d owens