Kat Martin, Heart of Honor

Heart of Honor

Kat Martin

Mira, January 2007, $7.99

ISBN: 0778323838

In 1842, Heart to Heart Weekly Ladies Gazette publisher Krista Hart attends the Circus Leopold traveling show. She and her friend reporter Coralee visit the star attraction billed as "The Last Barbarian". Krista feels sorry for the tall male locked inside a too small cage for his size, until he speaks in his tongue to Alfinn the monkey that she is a "real woman". The extremely tall Krista speaks back to him in his language Old Norse, a language not used in at least three centuries, that he is indeed a barbarian to say such things about a woman. He begs for her forgiveness; she obtains his release and takes him with her.

Son of a Viking chieftain, Leif Draugr left his home Draugr Island to explore the world beyond the horizon. He believes his Gods gave him the wanderlust in order to meet his true love, Krista. As her father "civilizes" him to behave like a proper gentleman in polite society, and her grandfather selects shrimps for her to marry, he and Krista fall in love. However, he must return to his people because he is the next chieftain, while she believes she belongs right here.

This is a fun whimsical early Victorian romance starring two individuals who do not quite fit in polite society. Leif believes the Fates left him shipwrecked six months ago and captured by a traveling circus so that he can meet his destiny, Krista. She loves her barbarian, but feels she belongs with the magazine not his island, though she likes the fact that he looks somewhat down at her eyes instead of her normal peering down at males. Though having Krista and her father speak his extinct language seems a stretch, readers will appreciate the Lady and the Barbarian as they fall in love.