Rating: 
Summary: Conquer the night - actually 4 1/2 stars
Review: Conquer the night was my 2nd Shannon Drake book. This is the story of Arryn Graham who is supposed to be a great-great-great grandson of the jarl who ruled the isle (in 'Come the morning'). It was a really informative yet entertaining read - packed with historical essence that made me love the medieval era. Ms.Drake describes all of the war scenes so very imaginably that I can envision them but some of these scenes are too horribly portrayed - such as how Cressingham is skinned. I love how Kyra argues with Arryn and that they gradually realize they fall in love with each other. There always be italicized texts that express thoughts of the characters and these make me better understand their true feelings. The scene of their departure from Seacairne is especially touching. All the secondary characters do their best job as well. The missing 1/2 star is for the unforgivable error... Kyra has red-blond hair but the model on the cover has very dark hair. How could this happen!?!?
Rating:
Summary: Conquer the night - actually 4 1/2 stars
Review: Conquer the night was my 2nd Shannon Drake book. This is the story of Arryn Graham who is supposed to be a great-great-great grandson of the jarl who ruled the isle (in 'Come the morning'). It was a really informative yet entertaining read - packed with historical essence that made me love the medieval era. Ms.Drake describes all of the war scenes so very imaginably that I can envision them but some of these scenes are too horribly portrayed - such as how Cressingham is skinned. I love how Kyra argues with Arryn and that they gradually realize they fall in love with each other. There always be italicized texts that express thoughts of the characters and these make me better understand their true feelings. The scene of their departure from Seacairne is especially touching. All the secondary characters do their best job as well. The missing 1/2 star is for the unforgivable error... Kyra has red-blond hair but the model on the cover has very dark hair. How could this happen!?!?
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ
Review: Conquer the Night was the first book I read by Shannon Drake and now I'm hooked. The relationship between Kyra and Arryn was so passionate in everyway-anger, love- that you could almost feel the emotions jump off the page! Mrs. Drake's writing was so vivid that I felt as if I was in medieval England and Scotland. A must read for anyone who enjoys Shannon Drake books!
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ
Review: Conquer the Night was the first book I read by Shannon Drake and now I'm hooked. The relationship between Kyra and Arryn was so passionate in everyway-anger, love- that you could almost feel the emotions jump off the page! Mrs. Drake's writing was so vivid that I felt as if I was in medieval England and Scotland. A must read for anyone who enjoys Shannon Drake books!
Rating: 
Summary: Gory details detract from reading pleasure
Review: I am a BIG Shannon Drake fan and I have to say this book is not her usual par. For one thing, three-fourths of the way through the book, the two main characters still have no real foundation for their relationship other than conquerer/prisoner relationship and physical attraction. Their interaction and growing attraction was not crafted as carefully as Drake's other novels. In addition, parts of the story were so gory, such as the part where a pregnant woman was hacked to pieces as she gave birth was mentioned, that I had nightmares and wanted to cry for the baby. It is hard enough to know that things like that occurred in the past and may still occur today (God forbid), but material like that really takes the pleasure out of reading the story because you don't know what other gory nightmare lurked on the next page. You can write a good story without details such as that and still provide enough reason for the cause of Arryn's revenge. It's almost if she went from romance to horror in this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Expected
Review: I bought this only because I couldn't find anything better at the grocery store. I ususally like the "heavier" historical romances that feature real historical people. But I was pleasantly surprised!This has just enough historical references to make it interesting and was a very entertaining romantic read. I have been trying to find the other books in the series ever since, but can't find them anywhere. I'd appreciate any source leads.
Rating:
Summary: DOUBLE WOW!!!!!
Review: I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN... IT IS ONE OF HER BEST!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: I Hated It!!
Review: I don't like cruel, ruthless heroes who rape someone to get even with their enemy no matter how awful the enemy is. I don't like heroines who cry and moan rape and abuse but try to instigate the hero forcing themself on them again. This is pretty much what this book was. The hero imprisons and rapes the heroine, later on she is attracted to him and tries to instigates these sexual advances while still calling it force. The characters did not make any sense and the plot ran in circles until the conclusion. Needless to say, I won't be wasting my money on Shannon Drake again.
Rating:
Summary: I thought it was okay
Review: I had to agree with one reader - I'm not fond of books where the hero forces himself on the heroine and then she suddenly discovers she loves him. Come on. This doesn't happen in real life (granted, we are to suspend disbelief since this IS fiction). I read this in about three days and have been thinking about it since I finished it. It's an okay book, but I don't think I'll run out and get the other two in the series. After pondering it for some time, I decided that there really wasn't much of a plot. She bored me with her detail of war and politics. I want a story. I want action. I want romance. Maybe I'm a different kind of romance reader - I *need* a story and more to it...That's it. In a nutshell.
Rating: 
Summary: Never Reached Its Potential.....
Review: I have never read a Shannon Drake novel prior to this one, but it is obvious to me that she has an exceptional writing skill and she is excellent at character development. Regardless, her book bored me to death! It's hard to sum up its downfalls; they all appeared to be minor problems that contributed to leaving the story uninteresting and disconnected. The interactions between Arryn and Kyra was not described well whatsoever. I think Shannon Drake would have had better luck making their relationship more believable had she concentrated on heavily describing their emotions (especially their thoughts regarding one another when they were apart) instead of recounting pages and pages of dull historical events and information. I am not biased against history; in fact, I'm about to graduate from college with a Liberal Arts Bachelor Degree with a focus on History! Her recounts on history were too lengthy and blandly worded, and am I the only one who thinks she pulled half of her information straight out of the movie Braveheart? I don't know why, but that seemed to get on my nerves more than anything. Anyway, parts of the book are actually quite stimulating and entertaining---you just have to skip over a group of pages here and there.
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