Heartmate (A Celta Novel, #1)

All his life, Rand T’Ash has looked forward to meeting his HeartMate, with whom he could begin a family. 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…

Danith 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. 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. But T’Ash refuses to accept her rejection and sees it as a challenge instead. They are HeartMates, but can T’Ash persuade his beloved to accept her destiny by his side?

• ISBN10: 0425212408
• ISBN13: 9780425212400
• Publish Date: 1 August 2006
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425212400

Reviews

[llamareads]

This is complete over-the-top fated mates insanity, further complicated by the fact it's a mash of Celtic and Wiccan traditions with some scifi thrown in (because WHY NOT at this point). I'm blaming the scifi parts for the incomprehensible weirdness of things like having a day named "MidWeekendDay" and "caff" and "Fam" and "housefluffs", my God, I could go ON but let's just stop there, OK?

Add in pretty much my least favorite bits of the fated mates trope and I should totally hate this, but somehow this fits in the "so bad it's good" zone. Maybe it's Zanth, the telepathic cat, who's pretty much the only character I actually liked, because T'Ash was too busy angstily chewing the scenery and Danith was just... there....

So anyway, I found this ridiculously fun to read, despite the fact I spent a good portion of the book rolling my eyes over, uh, basically everything.

[Vicki]

2.5 stars

I picked this up because the third book in this series was a recommended book listed under C.L. Wilson's Tairen Soul series (which I absolutely loved). Not wanting to read a book mid-series, I started with this. Sadly, this wasn't even close. The characters felt a bit one dimensional. T'Ash was like a possessive hormonal animal...women mine, women mine, women mine! And when he'd revert to his Downkind speak which was like a toddler, that's exactly how it sounded and just made it that much worse. Danith was ok. I didn't feel we learned that much about her other than she was resistant to all to T'Ash and all the changes in her life.

I do have to say the world was very interesting. Set 400 years in the future on another planet, it had an interesting mix of futuristic sci-fi with holo disks and historical fantasy with broadswords. There were very interesting elements of the new world and culture that evolved. The magic was interesting as well with individual abilities called Flair. I wish we could have learned more.

Overall, I thought this was a unique and interesting world with characters that I wish were more fleshed out.