A Pirate of Her Own by Kinley MacGregor

The second book in the Sea Wolves series and the follow up to Master of Seduction, although it appears that they were published the opposite way around. I don't mind the odd pirate story...can anyone say 'Ahoy there me hearty?

Love on the High Seas

He is the Sea Wolf, a dreaded pirate who stops English navy ships and frees impressed American sailors. Few know Morgan Drake's name, and none guesses at his past. Except, that is, a nosy Savannah reporter named Serenity James. Determined to protect his secrets at any cost, Morgan sets sail for Savannah...and Serenity.

All her life, Serenity has longed for adventure. As a woman, though, she's lucky even to be tolerated in her father's newspaper office. Then she's kidnapped by the bold, sexy pirate whose story fired her imagination, and his embrace Serenity finds adventure beyond her wildest dreams.

SS James is quite an unusual woman. She is pretty independent, works in her father's newspaper, and has published a story about the legendary Sea Wolf. Her ideas about his background have come so close to the truth that Morgan believes that she has managed to life the veil of secrecy around his identity, thereby putting himself and his men in danger. As soon as she sees the Captain she is captivated by his good looks and his charms, but even they can become a bit wearing when you have been kidnapped by his accomplices and forced to spend time on a boat that is seemingly becoming smaller and smaller, with fewer places to hide from the person who you are really attracted to!

The camaraderie between Jake (the hero from Master of Seduction) and Morgan was a highlight of this book, which is a bit unfortunate considering that it is a romance between Serenity and Morgan, but a lot of the other relationships were too....convenient. For example, Serenity becomes instant best friends with a woman who tries to teach her about the art of seduction, even though she spends barely two days with.

This book had mildly amusing moments scattered throughout it, but most of the time it felt like a book of half developed ideas, or maybe it was poorly executed ideas....either way, it fell short of the mark for me. The writing was clunky, almost to the point where to me it felt as though every second sentence might have been taken out, leaving just a semblance of the passage. For example, the battle scene, lasted one page. Now I don't want to read pages and pages of dialogue describing a battle, but at least take us there to see what the characters are seeing, and feel what they are playing.

Both the scenes where Morgan and Serenity finally acted on their attractions, and the final scene were contrived and the final scene in particular felt rushed and unconvincing to me.

Rating 2.5/5