After tending to his wounds, Dr. Aurora Spencer is kidnapped by a fierce, imprisoned Apache warrior, Stalking Wolf, during his escape from the fort, and their unexpected passion forces Aurora to choose between conflicting loyalties, and Wolf to choose love. Original.
Destiny's Warrior was a really good Western/Native American historical romance. Aurora Spenser is a woman Doctor from the East visiting her soldier father in the west in 1876. She is shocked to see the calvary ride into the fort with an Apache Indian as their prisoner. Aurora feels bad about the poor treatment the Indian receives and tries to help him.
Stalking Wolf allowed himself to be captured by the White Eye soldiers because he is trying to find out where the soldiers are planning to attack his Chiricahua Apache tribe next. He is almost dying of thirst when Aurora intervenes and get the soldiers to allow her to treat him. Aurora and Stalking Wolf have an instant connection despite the language barrier presented when Stalking Wolf pretends to only speak Spanish. Just when Wolf is getting better and they are growing closer, Aurora's father returns. Wolf recognizes her father as the man who shot his mother in a raid when he was 13 years old and attacks him. He is whipped for his actions and causes Aurora to realize she might not know him at all.
Stalking Wolf is able to escape the fort with the help of his Apache tribemates and Geronimo, his uncle. He leaves Aurora behind for now but promises to himself that he will be back to get her - for revenge of course. He puts a plan into action where he does capture Aurora away from the fort and makes her his captive. Aurora is no tame captive, she is terrified of this tough Apache so she tries to escape him. Stalking Wolf is no fool and manages to foil her escape attempts.
After a lot of danger and life threatening accidents that drew Wolf and Aurora closer despite their circumstances, they finally reach the Apache stronghold. Once there, Wolf has to decide whether he can accept the feelings he has for Aurora or whether revenge for his mother is more important - because Aurora is not taking the threat to her father lying down. Aurora is falling for Stalking Wolf, for despite the fact he kidnapped her, he continually saves her life and protects her from harm. The passion between them can't be denied but they both have to decide whether they can let go of the past and make a life together.
I really had fun reading this book! What an interesting ride through the West, I kept picturing the John Wayne movie scenes with the calvary in blue with yellow hankercheifs chasing after the Apaches, who knew the land and could avoid them. Stalking Wolf is doing the best he can for his Apache tribemates to lead them through this difficult time when the Army was trying to make them into farmers when they are horsemen. His whole life is duty until he falls for Aurora, then he starts to feel joy again. Aurora adjusts to Apache life and finds that she is willing to risk everything as long as Wolf is by her side. The writing was really good, it managed to feel authentic but still be a nice romance depite the serious issues the Apaches faced. There was a lot of passion between Aurora and Stalking Wolf that lights up the pages.
If you enjoy Western/Native American romances and/or captive themes, check this one out! It was an exciting fun read that was full of adventure and romance.
Technically, I did not finish the book. I read past the 3/4 mark and it wasn't worth finishing. The story takes place in 1876 in the southwest. The heroine is a doctor and the hero, a Chiricahua Apache. The author seemed to have trouble keeping the H/h in character. There is so much waffling between characterizations it made my head spin. The dialogue drove me crazy. Take a pass on this one.
Aurora wasn’t likable, and when I don’t like someone in the beginning, I never come to. She cursed and said damn and damned, which wasn’t how ladies talked in the 1800s. That was frowned upon, but she did it with no qualms or explanation, like there was nothing wrong with it. She also used the words savage and heathen when describing Stalking Wolf, which wasn’t okay at all. But the way she reacted when Wolf tried to kill her father was unforgivable. I knew I would never like her from that moment on. She says you really are nothing more than a despicable wild beast, a savage wolf, and a snake in the grass. I get she was mad that he attacked her dad, but she calls him a savage way too easily.
Their instant chemistry was really irritating and forced. I wish authors would take the time to make things unfold naturally instead of forcing that instant attraction. Wolf did not act or think like an Indian. The way he talked about his inability to stop thinking about her was like straight out of any old historical novel. That was almost cringe-worthy. The author laid it on too heavy having him say things like it was too late for her to put the distance of doctor and patient between them, it had always been too late. Make me gag.
Wolf gets himself unchained and corners Aurora in an alley, holding her mouth so she won’t scream. He kisses her to distract her, and of course Aurora pushes against him but ends up clinging to him. Then he knocks her out. Whew, it’s hard to like either one of them. That’s unforgivable too. Hitting someone unconscious is unforgivable and so wrong. It’s like the author sat down and made a list of all the things she could do to make readers dislike her characters as quickly as possible.
Aurora is going to a town suffering with small pox, and on the way wolf intercepts her, him and his warriors splitting up the people riding with her. She spurs the horse harder than she ever has, which made me dislike her all the more. Then she hits Wolf in the face with her riding crop and calls him a bastard, a primitive, uncivilized savage and a barbarian. And don’t forget, the son of a peach basket, my favorite. How stupid. Way to make her sound like a 5 year old.
This author has to have some mental disorder, or emotional disorder, or just writes as if she does. Aurora was hot and cold, going on and off like a switch, back and forth with no warning. You never knew which Aurora you were going to get, the “caring doctor” or the bitch. One minute she was attracted to him, the next she was saying rude things and trying to run way. She would literally get done admiring his body and going on and on about their attraction, and then she would turn on him like a snake. I wondered at the mental capacity of the author, because she couldn’t have not realized how bipolar Aurora was and let this book be published, thinking this made for good reading. But how could she not have realizes Aurora went back and forth constantly with her feelings towards him? It was like being on an emotional roller coaster. I hated every second of it and couldn’t wait to be done. It was one of the most infuriating and aggravating books I’ve ever read. I HATED Aurora, couldn’t stand anything about her. She was so unworthy of Wolf and the Indian way of life it wasn’t even funny. She was disrespectful time and again of him, his way of life, his beliefs, what he said, did, and every single thing about him. The author wanted her to be fiery, and gosh, how tired I was of hearing comparisons of her and fire, but wanted to make her nice by having her be a doctor, but it didn’t work. Aurora wasn’t nice, she is one of, if not the most, disrespectful character I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading about. She called him a savage and a barbarian too many times to count. Then she started calling him Apache challengingly, like his very tribe was an insult, like “I thought you were a warrior, Apache, not a man,” when he said men wanted to stare at their woman’s body, like a warrior is just a warrior and not a man, real brilliant thought there Aurora. It made loads of sense. Again, that’s disrespectful the way she taunts him by calling him by his tribe name. I don’t know why you pay respect to Indians by creating a character that doesn’t respect Indians at all almost the entire book. I know she’s going to suddenly do a 360 too, which will be too sudden and too late, and I won’t buy it by that point.
I thought their chemistry was good though, the looks and the touches and everything, (even though Aurora was totally undeserving of him,) until Wolf attempted to kill her father, and we all know how early in the book that happened. Aurora showed her true colors and I can’t stand anyone that is disrespectful of another person’s culture and way of life.
Literally everything that could happen in the 1800s did happen. She got bit by a rattlesnake, almost attacked by a bear, an evil Indian tried to get her, Mexicans almost killed her, she tripped and fell into him all the time, a jealous maiden tricked her, a skunk came out of the cave…every little stupid accident that could have made her appear weak did happen. Wolf was constantly picking her up, pulling her to him, putting her on the horse, tending to her—everything. He should’ve just strapped her into a papoose and called it a day. Can we say helpless?
The bear attack was the last straw. The idiot comes out on the bank after bathing without looking and comes up on a mother bear. She calls for Wolf, which was the underlying plot device throughout the whole novel, telling him to shoot it. Wolf doesn’t, which was really respectable, instead firing two warning shots, noticing the bear is swollen with milk and obviously nursing cubs. 2 cubs come up, and Aurora still insists he shoot. He points out it’s just like a white person to kill anything without understanding it. I guess the author also wanted to make me despise and resent not just all white people in this book but mainly the main racist white character, the female lead, and boy I did. Aurora was the typical uncaring, self-centered white person at that time that didn’t care about Indians and thought they really were savages and that animals were beasts to bear burdens and that they should be killed as soon as looked at. I can’t tolerate people that don’t like animals and mistreat them like it’s their lot in life to be mistreated. If you wanted me to hate you characters, you succeeded, and if you didn’t…well, you did everything that made it happen.
There’s only so many times you can read about someone staring at someone else before you get tired of it. You’re attracted to someone, then you either move on or it becomes love. You don’t keep pointing out for hundreds of pages that they’re attracted to each other. We get it. It’s time to move on.
Another thing that really didn’t resonate with me was that another woman came up, from his village, and Wolf was really shocked and scandalized by her open flirting with him. He said that Apache women were chaste and didn’t talk to men except their family members, so why isn’t he a virgin? I’m wondering who he slept with, because Apache women can’t even talk to single men, much less sleep with them, and white women didn’t have anything to do with him. Now I’m wondering who the village sluts are, or if the author just didn’t realize what she was saying. Wolf was the typical man waxing poetic about wanting her, her sent, her hair, his being consumed with thoughts of her all the time, the way he wanted to sleep with her to get it out of his mind, etc. It made me sick.
The entire book was like a complete copy of Catherine Anderson’s Comanche Moon. The whole story line was unoriginal, the phrases she used, thoughts they had, etc. I’m not sure if this was written after that book, or if Anderson copied her, and I don’t care to look it up. Either way, the books had a lot of similarities. Aurora was supposed to be the strong, brave woman that could bear strong children. The captures were also a lot alike, as well as the reception in the Indian village. People pull her hair, throws stones at her and hit her just like in Comanche Moon.
The book passes on in the same exact manner with no character growth. She keeps shooting down Wolf’s accusations that her father killed his mother and had tried to kill him too, insisting he has the wrong man. I didn’t think it was possible to hate her much more, but then she does another little unforgivable thing, proving that she is not compassionate or kind like the author keeps forcing me to swallow. Aurora was so unsympathetic the way she said he wasn’t an Apache because his butt was white, and why would he have bronze skin everywhere else, but a white butt? Who’s ever heard of someone of mixed blood having a completely different colored butt? Wow, such stupidity. She thinks he lied to her about her identity, asking who are you, and saying you’re not Apache even though the man is clearly an Indian. Aurora is so stupid at so many junctures, she got so indignant thinking she was justified getting mad at him, and hammered it in that the guy wasn’t Apache, I think saying things like he didn’t belong with them or something like that. You can see he’s sensitive about not being full Apache, so that was really cruel of her to act like that. She’s a bitch, and that’s all there is to it. Aurora falls in love with him, how can she when she’s constantly berating his entire race and way of doing things? But there’s love for you, opposites attract I supposed…even when there’s absolutely no respect from one of the parties. No matter, the author has a way of solving that…or wait, no she doesn’t. Aurora just likes Wolf’s body, and the way he makes her feel, not really anything deeper than that. That isn’t love, that’s lust. There’s a big difference, romance authors.
Aurora comes to fall in love with him, but keeps it to herself, wondering about his feelings. They both keep their feelings to themselves, pretending it’s all just physical instead of emotional. Then she just all of a sudden realizes that he must love her to. So she tells him she loves him right before he’s leaving to go pick up medicine for his people. He doesn’t even turn around, but stiffens. I knew there would be a really dumb explanation for his actions, a weak and flimsy one, and boy was I right. When she tells him he didn’t say anything when she told him she loved him, he says if he would’ve held her he couldn’t have let go. Ugh, lay that on any thicker and I’m going to choke on it. And they both kept bringing up the fact that he must love her because he heard her call his name during the battle, where the Mexicans almost killed her or captured her or whatever. Um yeah, I don’t think there was anything special about that. There’s nothing significant about him hearing her call his name, because anyone with ears could have and would have heard that. So stupid.
Aurora runs away thinking he doesn’t love her, and he goes after her, and they meet up with the army. His dad shoots him, and they all believe he’s dead. Aurora doesn’t grieve as much as she should, then just turns to the other guy in the army and is about to marry him, because she’s pregnant and he tells her how bad it is for a baby to be illegitimate. Wolf comes in the nick of time, because the guy she’s about to marry sent word in the chance that he was alive. He isn’t mad that she’s about to marry someone else. Her dad does a 360 and is suddenly nice towards Indians, wants to help them, and realizes Indians never killed his wife, but the doctor did, something his daughter has been telling him since it happened. Okayy. There’s that turn-around right at the end that isn’t believable at all. And just as Aurora is about to tell Wolf she’s pregnant, he already knows. Because she weighs less but there’s a heaviness in her stomach or something like that. I just love when the guy already knows she’s pregnant and the surprise is ruined.
It’s pretty bad when you start disliking the male lead for liking the female lead, but that's exactly what happened. Aurora showed no interest or pleasure at his way of life, constantly berating him and his people, and through it all Wolf just kept liking her and reaching out to her, so I started not liking him.
I'm giving this book its first bad review; it needed it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.