Review: For the Love of a Goblin Warrior

Reviewed by Jen
 

Meryn has spent thousands of years trapped in the Shadowlands as a goblin.  He witnessed the death of his wife and children. Now he has been thrust back into the human realm with no warning.  The only languages he knows are long dead.  The world around him is nothing like he once knew. Nothing makes sense.

Nadine is a nurse at the hospital where police take the half-crazed sword-wielding Meryn when he is found on the street.  Though he can't understand the words she is saying, Meryn can hear the kindness and sincerity in Nadine's words and she calms him.  Nadine sees beyond the dirty and wounded exterior to the proud and good man beneath.  So much so, her impression of him remains even after he flees the hospital to live on the streets.

Nadine and Meryn cross paths again a week or so later at a local park, but by then, he has miraculously conveniently picked up the English language.  The two strike up a friendship.  Even more, there is an underlying spark they both feel.  Meryn agrees to let his cousin help him build a new life for himself, to pave the way for a real chance with Nadine.  But all the while, he constantly worries about the fact he can't tell her the truth about himself.

Nadine is working to overcome a difficult childhood.  Her father went to jail for killing her mother who was coincidentally obsessed with a goblin fairy tale. But her feelings for Meryn are changing her life.  Meryn, meanwhile, undergoes an even bigger transformation.  He works through a lot of emotional turmoil as he adjusts to modern day life.  (Some good angst there.)  For the most part, I liked the dynamic of their romance.

But there were a fair share of problems.  Too many things were too easy or, ahem, convenient.  From the ease of Meryn's transformation to a 21st century man after thousands of years as a goblin... to his incidental meeting with Nadine's father... to his history with her mother.  And even if you can ignore all that, when we got to the big reveal of his goblin history, she accepted it as if it were an everyday occurrence.   She was more fixated on a stolen necklace than the fact that he was a mythological creature.  That --and the fact that he lied about it.  (*SMH*) Really? I know some people take issue when reviewers complain about realism in PNR... but who the heck would react that way?? It didn't ring true.

It wasn't a bad story. It just had too many coincidences and the goblin reveal was a major fail.

Rating: C+

*ARC Provided by Sourcebooks via NetGalley

Click to purchase: Amazon

For the Love of a Goblin Warrior

by Shona Husk

Release Date: January 1, 2013

Publisher: Sourcebooks