Nightsong (Song, Book 3)

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

VALERIE SHERWOOD

Synopsis from Goodreads: Living in exile on the island of Jamaica, Rye Evistock, better known as Captain Kells, and his beautiful wife, Carolina Lightfoot, are waiting for Kells to be cleared of a trumped-up treason charge in England. Kells decides to return to buccaneering one last time in order to gain enough money to settle down in peace. After anxious months of waiting for her husband to return, Carolina finally sights his ship on the horizon, but at that moment, catastrophe strikes in the form of an earthquake that destroys the harbor town and leaves Kells and his ship nowhere to be found.

Devastated, Carolina leaves for England, but her ship is captured by the Spanish at Havana and she is given to the governor's aide as a slave. To her utter amazement, the “aide” is none other than Kells, suffering from amnesia, and believing himself to be Spanish. Desperate to regain his love and convince him of his true identity before their hated enemies discover it, Carolina hatches a dangerous plot that could free them both...or seal their death warrants...

Stats for my copy: Hardback, Pocket Books, 1986.

How acquired: Via Book Mooch.

First line: Beneath a pale moon that shed its light upon Jamaica's southern coast, a slender curving sandspit cut like a scimitar into the deep dark sapphire of a night-silvered sea.

My thoughts:  I loved the first two books in this trilogy (LOVESONG and WINDSONG), so I was very much looking forward to NIGHTSONG. The first two books both started out slow for me, and took a little while for me to get caught up in. NIGHTSONG was the opposite. I was caught up right away. When the earthquake struck I was completely mesmerized. And then Carolina, believing Kells dead, finds herself in Havana, with her sister Penny, and from that point on I struggled to stay interested.

In Havana, Carolina is reunited with a very much alive Kells. As a slave bought by the governor and gifted to his friend Kells, who everyone, including Kells himself, believes is Don Diego Vivar. Normally I love an amnesia plot (Sandra Brown, THE WITNESS!). But this one just got ridiculous. Carolina tries to convince “Diego” that he is really Kells. He's insulted and angered that she would dare to compare him to a notorious buccaneer. Carolina suddenly seems convinced that he's not Kells, he's really Diego, and just looks like Kells. At which point I almost threw the book across the room. Then she realizes that he is indeed Kells, and if anyone else in Havana recognizes who he really is his life will be in danger.

Penny. In the second book I was thrilled to get to know their sister Virginia. I did not care for Penny nearly as much. And Robin Tyrell...ugh. He and Penny deserve each other.

Toward the end I seriously wondered if Carolina and Kells would ever have an HEA. And I didn't even really care. I just wanted it to be over.

Will I read this author again? Yes. But maybe not for awhile.