Date published: December 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-0425238202
Historical Romance
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Gina
Obtained by Publisher
Nate has pretty much kept his past in the past. Its painful memories and sense of loss are tucked away where no one can reach them. Not even his best friend, Vincent, has any idea about the tall, good looking man’s history. One person has a snippet of who he was not so long ago, but even she doesn’t begin to know the full story.
Claire Gentry has been on a quest for a missing piece of a map that will lead her to the greatest pirate treasure of all time. She too has a past best left behind. With a history of those she loves most leaving her, she is determined to find the treasure, believing it will make all right in her world. When Claire finds a lead to the illusive map she bets all she has on winning the parchment in a poker game. She not only loses, but she loses to Nate. At first Nate doesn’t recognize the girl from his past; after all, she is hiding in the guise of a boy. But when he realizes who is on his ship and what she is after, what the couple thought they left behind comes rushing to the fore.
But Claire and Nate aren’t the only ones on the trail of this amazing treasure, a treasure that has been sought for over a hundred years with nary a trace. Those other seekers don’t care who they have to trample on to gain their goal, or who they have to kill.
After reading ROMANCING THE PIRATE, book 2 of Michelle Beattie’s pirate series, I couldn’t wait to dig into book 3, A PIRATE’S POSSESSION. At the end of ROMANCING THE PIRATE I expressed the hope that Vincent and Nate would appear in another story. I was delighted to see Nate’s name on the pages shortly into the story and Vincent’s appearance made it feel like a reunion between myself and two marvelous characters.
Sadly, the witty banter between the two was missing in A PIRATE’S POSSESSION as was any connection I felt to the characters. Claire arrives on the scene, ready to bid on the map, but there is no explanation of how she, or Nate, knew it was up for bid. They fell in love as teens but I didn’t feel a spark between the adult characters.
What turned me off almost completely in the book was what I felt to be the gratuitous death of one of the characters. Of course it created considerable drama for the other characters, but had he lived through a terrible illness they would still have bonded and the door would have been opened for at least one more story in this series, if not two with Nate’s brother in the hero’s role.
There were gaps in the story; the characters did things without seeming to have any reason to. That said, if there is a fourth book I will read it if for no other reason than to catch up with the characters we met in the first two books.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.
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