A Pirate's Possession by Michelle Beattie

Nate Carter and Claire Gentry's book






A Pirate's Possession


By Michelle Beattie


Book Blurb:
LOVE AND GOLD HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON: THEY CAN ONLY BE BURIED FOR SO LONG …

Abandoned by her father and married to a deceitful man, Claire Gentry fled from her life. Disguised as a man, Claire wagers all she owns in a poker game to locate the treasure her father sought. While her disguise holds, it doesn’t protect her when one of her opponents turns out to be the only man she ever gave her heart to.

Nate Carter is no fool. Raised in an orphanage and sailing as the mysterious pirate Sam Steele, Nate is looking to gamble for a map that will lead him to a treasure. But when he looks over his cards, he’s reminded of a past he’d rather forget --- and the woman who could have given him everything he truly wanted.

After Nate wins the map, Claire has no choice but to accompany her old love on his quest. But running for their lives soon replaced running from the past. And if they survive the bloody battle for the treasure, they may just realize that what they really have been searching for isn’t riches --- but each other ..

Simply put, I just didn't enjoy A Pirate's Possession. I found the book lacking interesting characters and just plain boring. If I didn't have such a compulsion to finish a book when I start it, I would have put it down. 

A Pirate's Possession seems to be the 3rd book in a series. It does not actually indicate that information on Goodreads or Amazon but there are definitely carry over characters from the previous two books. I am wondering if I had read those first two books, would my perception be different? 

In A Pirate's Possession while reading about Nate it felt like he was an already established character and I felt no connection with him. Obviously Nate was a pirate (as the book is called A Pirate's Possession) but there was really no pirating in this story. There was a treasure map, a ship and a search for that buried treasure. Nate was also known as an infamous pirate, Sam Steele. However that name means nothing if reading A Pirate's Possession. Again I believe that all goes back to this being the third book in a series. I think I was missing out on a lot of assumptions the author was making regarding Nate's character. Hence I really didn't know him nor was really given the desire to be curious about him. 

That takes me to our female lead, Claire. I could not allow for Nate's personality absence to be made up for by having a great female protagonist because quite honestly, I couldn't stand Claire. I thought I was going to love her as she dressed in men's garments and was really used to looking after herself. What she turned out to be in my mind was a whiny, selfish, unforgiving drama queen and even though I didn't really know Nate, I felt he had to deserve better than Claire as his love interest. 

My favourite stories are when the lead characters have a childhood history and I was very disappointed. With Nate and Claire being so supposedly in love and having such a close past relationship, they sure had big misunderstandings and little room for forgiveness. It just frustrated me. 

I adore historical type of romances. I love the addition of items that are historically accurate and the overall feel of being whisked away back in time. Although the story was set in 1660, it could have been 1960. There was just nothing to place me in the year 1660. Yes there was a ship but nothing really to distinguish this ship from being a pirate ship vs a regular modern day sailing vessel. Simply the need to light a candle to see isn't enough for me. 

To wrap up, I didn't like the characters, the lack of an actual pirate or historical type of story line, the bland romance and being a little bit lost with the introduction of characters near the end of the book (that held obvious importance from the previous two books). Serves me right I suppose for discovering that I was reading a book two stories into a series. If I had known that going in, I wouldn't have started it.  Even so, most books of this nature should be able to be read as stand alones but it didn't work for me.