Living under the abusive and terror of his battlelord father, the hero had dedicated his life to doing everything in his power to destroy his father and the Warlord. Gaining popularity with the tyrant, the hero won favor and is offered the hand of the warlords daughter as reward. Now, all those years of planning had come to a head and the hero has managed to wipe out the Drakken power and kill the warlord. All the hero lives for now is his search for his bride. The heroine knew a similar torturous childhood under the abuse of her father. She's lived in a shelter world, oppressed by her extremely pour eyesight. Now, the universe is in chaos and everyone is searching for the warlords daughter to complete to extermination. She's forced to cut her hair, hide in a refugee ship- alone and frightened. But she is strong enough to realize that her shelter world has made her weak and she makes strives to survive in a place where she is marked for death. Possessing her mothers necklace and being told by her guardian just before her death that it's a key to a treasure, the heroine knows that she must make atonement for her fathers deeds and she her ignorance as well. It's in that camp where the hero finds his wife. The heroine remembers the man whom she had been promised to all those years ago but always thought him to be repulsed by her. That couldn't be further from the truth. In fact the hero has lived solely for her, thinking of nothing but protecting her and having her for his own. But she never imagined that they would already be married in a ceremony by proxy. The heroine thinks marriage to be a cage but even she can't deny the hope of possessing such a strong man who could love her in the ways she imagined. Together they go on the run to seek out this treasure along the way learning each other and discovering that true love is possible after all. I was horribly torn with this book. On one hand I adored the passion between the two main characters but on the other I found it to be extremely rushed and monotone. Lets start with the fact that they don't actually reunite until almost half way through the book. Then there's the fact that this actually an equal story about 3 love affairs all compressed into a books that's under 320 pages. Lastly the idea that they fall so madly and passionately in love with one another despite the fact that they only glimpsed each other years ago and have had no contact since. It was just one thing after another that muddled the story I felt this could have been. I wanted a more in depth tale between the battlelord and the warlords daughter that I felt was lacking sadly. I also would have preferred the brothers love story to be it's own book as I felt that neither he nor the hero truly had a chance to shine. I was torn mainly because what little there was between the hero and heroine was great and so sweet. It's just that it had way too much going on in such a short book. So sad because I thought it could have really been a knockout. ( )

Sci-fi story that kept my interest but there was only a small amount of romance which didn't even start until middle of the book. Drakken warlords daughter Wren holds a key to treasure. Aral secretly worked for coalition and now that war is over searches for Wren.
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"The Warlord's Daughter" by Susan Grant is a futuristic, intergalactic, paranormal romance that's book two in a spin-off series from her 'Otherworldly Men' books. Without having read the other books in the series, I was a bit confused at times regarding repeat characters from earlier stories, but it didn't impact my enjoyment too much. I found this book to be a fairly quick and entertaining read, but would really classify it as more s/f with romance than anything else.

The war is finally over after thousands of years and the most hated man in the galaxy is dead. The only problem is, the secret daughter he left behind has just become the most wanted woman in the galaxy with a bounty of unimaginable wealth on her head. When Wren's two guardians kill each other in a battle over her future, she realizes just how sheltered she's been. Now she has a precious artifact, a name (of what or who she doesn't know), and a mission to 'make the galaxy whole'. No pressure.

Aral is the eldest son of one of the most ruthless Warlords. His father tried, through intimidation and beatings, to make his son just like him...and failed. But it was the death of a beloved teacher that turned Aral into a young man with a mission--he's going to bring down the Drakken Empire. After years of subterfuge and fighting, he's done it and now he's ready to claim the woman he's cared for and fought for since she was a young girl. Of course, he had no idea of exactly how difficult that would be.

For me, this was a story that wanted to be epic science fiction. Not having read the previous book, "Moonstruck", maybe it is...but not for me. There's less romance and more...growing up is I guess the best way for me to describe it, along with a history of magic, keys, keepers, goddesses, and future religion. Maybe more will be forthcoming in a future story in the same galaxy, but it did seems that Susan Grant tied up most of her loose ends in "The Warlord's Daughter".

The main characters were interesting, but not quite fully formed for me. Her naivety and ignorance of her mission seemed to be 'fixed' rather quickly, even though the 'romance' was mostly PG for pretty much the entire book. His violent past was hard to connect with the current man we see in the book, nightmares and all. There was also a lost brother found with the exact information necessary, and he had fallen in love with a new ship's Captain who just happened to be the one sent on the exactly correct mission. Add in a mercenary pilot, who changes quickly into a pseudo-hero who fights for what's right rather than what's 'in it for me' and it just became one too many 'coincidences' to swallow. Even though I enjoyed the book, and even though I like Susan Grant's writing, "The Warlord's Daughter" wasn't the hit I was hoping for. ( )

http://jacescribbles.blogspot.com/2009/03/warlords-daughter-by-susan-grant.html ( )