REVIEW: Pot of Gold by Megan Hart
Dear Mrs Hart,
I’m finally getting back to Pot of Gold, your first story about Captain Robin Steele and his love, Nora as they search for a hidden leprechaun fortune beneath a Caribbean island. I like it just as much as the sequel, Emerald Isle. It’s fast and humorous and since it’s a fantasy, I just sat back and enjoyed the fun. Despite the fact that romantica isn’t usually my thing, the numerous sex scenes make sense because of the leprechaun sex spell. And they’re hawt without being too purple or ending up silly.
But what really makes me happy about the story is the fact that both lead characters are so well balanced. Robin isn’t an overbearing hero and Nora doesn’t go all feisty on us, even when she saves Robin from the merbitch with the teeth of a shark. Yet, while their dialogue is snappy and fun to read the following passage makes me believe that these two are truly in love.
He embraced her and nuzzled her hair. His voice was muffled. “Love isn’t always enough, Nora.”
“Robin Steele,” she scolded. “If you think I’m going to let you get away just because you didn’t find that bedamned gold, you’re absolutely mad!”
He pulled away to look at her. “I want to be able to provide more for you than a sea-damp berth on a stolen ship.”
“Robin,” Eleanor said gently. “Wherever we go will be wonderful. As long as we’re together.”
She could tell she hadn’t convinced him. “You say that now, but what of when we’ve naught but salt biscuits and grog to sustain us?”
“I have faith in you,” was all she said. It was all she needed to say. It was the truth. No magic could change it.
“And what if I disappoint you?”
She’d never heard such blunt honesty from a man. Winston, her father, her brothers all spent all their days blustering and swaggering. She’d never thought a man could admit to doubt of anything, much less about himself.
His vulnerability only made her love him more, for she understood how difficult it must have been for him to reveal it. She stood on her toes to take his face in her hands. She searched his gaze with her own and marveled at how fates and magic had led her to this man.
“Robin, I love you. And not because of the size of your purse or the number of sails on your ship. I love what’s inside you, and that could never disappoint me.”
She saw his struggle, and admired him all the more.
“I don’t know what I did to make myself worthy of your love, Nora, but ’tis proud and glad I am to have it. I’ll do my best for you, love.”
Two little niggles bothered me just a bit. One, Nora’s plan to escape her dull, secure life and boring fiance isn’t that well thought out. Just where did she think she was going to end up when she snuck aboard the ship? And her fiance turns out to be little more than a cardboard villain. Did we need him in the story? Hadn’t Robin and Nora already learned that each was the other’s greatest treasure and that greed gets you nowhere?
Well, niggles aside, I’ll give you another B for this one. Oh, and I loved the mental image of a leprechaun in a sarong.
~Jayne
