For the Love of a Goblin Warrior (Shadowlands)

by Shona Husk

"In a faraway land ... There lived a man who was trapped--his only companions a horde of goblins consumed by their lust for gold. He thought he was lost forever, thought that no one would ever remember he'd been noble. A fearless warrior. Now he has been thrust into the human world once again, but so much has changed. How can he ever be rid of the darkness after so long in the Shadowlands?"--Page 4 of cover.

• ISBN10: 1299649114
• ISBN13: 9781299649118
• Publish Date: 1 January 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 3 June 2015
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Sourcebooks Casablanca
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Meryn was cursed to be a goblin warrior and now he's out of the shadowlands he has to learn how to be human again. Nurse Nadine Gilbert has lived with the fact that her father killed her mother. Little does she know the reality of the event, that there were goblins involved and in fact her father is innocent. He's near the end of his term in jail but she wants nothing to do with him. How will she react to the former goblin? How will he cope with the modern world? How will he cope with humanity after years of being a goblin?

I got this one from Goodreads as an ARC in a Giveaway and I was very happy with it. It was a good read, a satisfying read that pulled me along and kept me reading well past my bedtime. I would like to read more in this series to find out more about the world and the other characters, while it was a book that stood well on it's own, there were things I knew I missed from not reading the others. Occasionally it did feel a bit rushed but otherwise I enjoyed it.

[Stephanie]

Really a 3.5

Shona Husk picks up right where she left off in Kiss of a Goblin Prince. Dai has risked it all to bring Meryn back to the Fixed Realm. Meryn is confused and that is putting it very simply. He does not recognized the world that he left. Two centuries have passed since Meryn has been in the fixed realm and anyone who has taken a world history class knows how much has changed in that time. Meryn faces having to adjust to this strange new world that he finds himself in. The nurse in the hospital he ends up in seems to genuinely want to help him.

Nadine has had a hard life. When she was very young her father was convicted of murdering her mother even though her body was never found. He has recently been released from prison for good behavior. Nadine has never forgiven him and can’t understand how everything could seem to be going so well one day and completely fall apart the next. She can’t sleep during the night so she works third shift at the hospital and sleeps during the day. Nadine’s sleeping habits changed the night her mother was taken from her. One night she meets a man who seems wild. He speaks in a language that neither she nor the police who brought him in understand.

Meryn has a lot to get through if he is going to be able to make it in the world that he finds himself in. That means accepting help from people that he is ashamed to be seen by. Meryn can’t forgive himself for the things that he has seen and for giving in to the curse. In this volume of the Shadowlands series our hero and heroine must learn a lot about forgiveness; forgiving themselves as well as those they love, in order to find peace and love with each other.

Shona Husk does a great job of describing the setting and her characters. I enjoyed seeing previous couples and their happiness. The main problem that I had with For the Love of a Goblin Warrior is that I just didn’t connect with the hero and heroine like I have in past books. I basically felt kind of “meh” about them. Of course you always root for them to work things out and to have a happily ever after. I just didn’t feel like they had to be okay for me to be okay. I wasn’t as emotionally invested in their couplehood as I have been with Husk’s other characters.

Overall, the Shadowlands series is a great paranormal series that uses the goblin element. I haven’t seen too many paranormal romances that use goblins as the good guys. It’s refreshing to read something different when there is so much out there that seems to be the same.