Lucius Ulpius Aquila is haunted by his brother’s ghost, even before he receives word of his death. Aulus was the commander of a fort in the wilds of Britannia, and it is Lucius’s only hope of finding out why Aulus haunts him. Once he arrives there with his young son, Lucius’s party is attacked. They are victorious, but not without casualties. And Lucius captures a beautiful Celtic woman, after she fires several arrows at him.

Rhiannon expects Lucius to maul her the moment he has the chance, so it is a surprise when he treats her with care, even making sure her wound is tended to. She finds herself attracted to him, her clan’s enemy and the man who now labels her slave, but refuses to give in to such feelings, not even with urgings from her people’s spy hidden within the fort. It does not help that Lucius’s son endears himself to her, or that Lucius himself inspires compassion once she learns of his problem.

Joy Nash is an author I’ve enjoyed before. She can manage a complex story without weakening the romance, and without giving away the ending too early in the story, which is exactly the way Celtic Fire went. I really enjoyed this book. Rhiannon wasn’t a warrior woman who couldn’t be defeated, but she neither was she someone who just gave up when the odds looked bad. I liked that she was heroine I could root for. The hero wasn’t your typical Roman character. When he captured Rhiannon, he insisted he’d eventually have her in his bed, but made no real move to push the issue as far as I’d expected. He seemed the epitome of every good hero: kind, lusty, boyish, tough, and considerate without being weak. And his son was one of the cutest kids I’ve come across in a book; he definitely didn’t ruin the flow of the story. As for the plot concerning Rhiannon’s clan, I found it to be well thought out. Not once during the course of the story did I feel I could guess what would happen next, and once I got into the story, I had trouble putting it down. Celtic Fire was genuinely an pleasurable, and very readable, story. And while it’s certainly not an erotic romance, it has plenty of the heat a reader could hope for between two passionate characters, characteristic more of their growing feelings for each other than just sex.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Very sensual

Reviewer: Tara Black
April 26, 2005