Desert Warrior – Review

Category: Adult Romance
Keywords: Romance, sheikhs, royalty
Format: Mass market paperback, eBook (e-ARC received from Netgalley)

From goodreads:

The fabled desert kingdom of Zulheina was Tariq’s birthright, and he was a man who held tightly what belonged to him. And that meant he had to reclaim a very special woman–the woman who had broken his heart years before in New Zealand. And once he had lured her to this distant land, he meant to keep his new bride here forever….

But Jasmine Coleridge was not as easily tamed as he had imagined. Her beguiling blend of untouched innocence and dazzling sensuality threatened, once again, to bring the haughty sheikh to his knees–and made him wonder who was the true prisoner.

Thuy’s review:

I hate to give a low score to a Nalini Singh book but I really wasn’t a huge fan of either the hero or the heroine in this one. Jasmine is only 18 when she meets and falls in love with Tariq, son of the sheikh of a desert kingdom. Young and insecure, her family convinces her to leave Tariq and end the relationship. Four years go by when Jasmine hears of Tariq’s father, the sheikh passing. Having matured in the last four years and come into her own, Jasmine has realized the mistake she made in leaving the man she loved. She hops a plane back to Tariq, intent on making it work this time. Tariq knows that Jasmine has made plans to come back and he intends to make her stay. Picking her up from the airport he takes her to his palace and basically tricks her into marrying him. Sure, she knows what’s going on but it doesn’t change the fact that he thought he was doing it without her knowledge.

Tariq is angry at her for leaving him all those years ago, which is understandable. However, what I don’t understand is his why he ties her to him when he is so intent on remaining angry with her and not trusting her. I feel like part of him does it so that he can punish her. He withholds his love from her and his words and actions border on cruelty. I know he’s afraid to show Jasmine how he feels because he doesn’t want to be hurt again but at a certain point I just stopped liking him.

I liked Jasmine a little more but not much more. I didn’t understand why she put up with Tariq’s behavior for as long as she did. Actually I think I do. Since she was the one who left him originally, I think believes his behavior is fitting punishment for her lack of faith and that this time around, she has to prove to him that her love will not be swayed – by him or anyone else. Unfortunately he didn’t want to believe it for a very long time. When the Big Conflict finally occurs I was mad at both of them – Tariq for his lack of trust and Jasmine for putting up with it for so long. He also says something incredibly cruel to her during a big fight which made me want to punch him.

Though I did feel an emotional connection between the two characters, in the end, there was little romance in this romance novel. I am glad I read it because Nalini Singh is one of my favorite authors and I liked taking a look at her early work. But I would not recommend this to someone if I wanted to turn them on to her books. My copy of Desert Warrior was bundled with the new release, Lord of the Abyss. Lord of the Abyss is freakin’ AWESOME (see review here) so, if you’re interested in Desert Warrior, pick up the bundled version with Lord of the Abyss.

Visit the author online at www.nalinisingh.com and follow @NaliniSingh on Twitter