My Shadow Warrior
Grade : B

My Shadow Warrior is the final book in Jen Holling's trilogy about three Scottish sisters whose mother was burned at the stake as a witch, and who all possess magical powers of their own. After their mother's death, the girls were separately sent into hiding for their own safety, but now their father, Laird Alan MacDonell, is dying and has called them home to see them settled with husbands and safe from witch hunters before he dies.

Rose MacDonell has been in charge of her father's care, as she is a healer whose magical power is most useful in diagnosis. She is able to see a person's unique color (their "aura," if you will) and the differing colors of an illness or injury. She cannot magically cure the malady - she uses her herbal and medical knowledge for that - but her magic can pinpoint the problem and suggest treatment. However, she has been stumped with her father's illness. His color is clear, though growing fainter, and there is no illness in his body that she can see, even though he is clearly dying, and has been wasting away for several months, and two books, now.

Desperate, she has written many letters to William McKay, Lord Strathwick, known as "The Wizard of the North," who is reputed to be a great, healing witch. However, witch fever is running rampant in Scotland; William's own clan has turned against him, and as a result, he has become a recluse, rarely leaving his castle. When he does venture out to heal someone, the villagers turn against the ones who were healed, and they must take refuge in the castle or be stoned as witches themselves.

Into this atmosphere comes Rose, who has traveled to William's remote castle to beg, in person, his help for her father. He refuses, but while she is there, she witnesses a healing. Though he tries, he cannot turn away the pleas of a mother who asks him to save her dying girl. William's healing powers are truly miraculous; he takes the illness upon himself, leaving the victim completely healed. Any other Star Trek geeks out there flashing on the episode, The Empath? It works just like that, though it takes William several days to recover. However, this time he nearly dies before the ailment can recede and Rose saves his life. In return, he promises to travel with her to see her father.

They begin a perilous road trip, and William begins to teach Rose how use her magic to heal. Though there is a powerful physical attraction between the two, it is the sense of kinship, of shared experiences with its attending joys and sorrows that really creates the relationship between the two. William has been so isolated, and so reviled for his gift, that connecting with another like himself is such a relief. His gift has become a burden to him and he is just going through the motions of living. Rose shakes him up and gives him a new purpose.

Rose was sexually abused at her foster home as a child, and has much anger and resentment toward her father, as well as love, and an anxious need to save him. Add to that Rose's ambivalence toward her childhood fiancé, baggage William has about his late wife, and his young daughter's emerging witch powers - there are a lot of complex emotions in play here, and Holling doesn't flinch from them.

The biggest drawback to this book, and indeed the entire trilogy, is the villain of the piece. I saw fairly quickly in the first book the reason why Laird MacDonell was dying, and who and what were responsible. That it took the sisters, with all their powers, three books to work it out themselves is the big flaw in these books. But, there were some twists and turns toward the end that served to keep me turning the pages to read the final denouement.

This has been a strong, well-written, solid series. If you are a fan of Witch Romances - and really, who isn't? - I recommend this trilogy. It is not without its flaws, but it is consistently entertaining.

Reviewed by Cheryl Sneed
Grade : B
Book Type:

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : August 26, 2005

Publication Date: 2005

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Cheryl Sneed

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