Against His Orders by Lindsay M JoslynRating: 2.5 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novella


Captain Logan Harris is about to sign a peace treaty with an army of Sioux Indians, led by a ruthless warrior named Broken Sky. But then one of Logan’s soldiers, Ben Langer, decides to charge the Indians to avenge his brother, Nathaniel, who died in the wars. As it happens, Nathaniel had been Logan’s sweetheart. But in the interest of peace, Logan gives Ben up to the Sioux—and then goes off on his own to try and save Ben, since he couldn’t save Ben’s big brother.

Unfortunately, despite the inticing blurb, this had virtually nothing but problems for me. First, the story ends in a cliffhanger—with no second book in sight. Nowhere was this mentioned, so there was no resolution of any kind. Second, every sex scene ends abruptly with someone knocking on the door or witnessing their acts, so there’s never a truly satisfactory sensual scene. Third, though this is an historical and I assume the author intended this to be realistic, there’s such a thing as going overboard on the violence, loss of limbs, racism, etc., especially in what is supposed to be a romance. It’s hard to fall for the sensual scenes when it’s preceded by such distasteful torture. Fourth, I couldn’t connect with the main characters, as they both said and did things that awakened little sympathy in me. One good, honest discussion and neither of them would have been in this mess. Fifth, there’s quite a bit of hypocrisy here. Logan has no problem killing Indians and by the end of the book, he was ready to slaughter them all in revenge.  At the same time, he berates the Mormons who seek shelter at his fort for doing something unethical, even as they are desperate and dying of starvation. To me it read like hypocrisy, allowing the slaughter of Native Americans and then being oddly progressive of a woman being used as barter. It felt to me like the author was trying to show that Logan, despite being intent on killing Indians, was a better man than the rest, giving him a hero’s halo, which I don’t think he deserved. One little speech judging people who were at their wits end compared to a lifetime spent killing? It didn’t work at all.

If it wasn’t for the writing, which was moderately good with its descriptions and giving the world a touch of realism (though that too was shattered by a weird tornado event), I would have given this two stars. This is simply speaking not worth your time or money in my opinion. At least wait until there’s more to this possible series, as the cliffhanger will undoubtedly bug you as it did me.

susan sig