Welcome to the second meeting of the month for the H&H Book Club, which is discussing Karen Marie Moning’s hybrid time travel/medieval, Beyond The Highland Mist.
In our first H&H Book Club meeting, we talked about whether or not we actually like Hawk and Adrienne, how we would have reacted upon being shifted 500 years in the past, and how Adrienne’s cat back in the present is faring (we’re really worried!).
For this second round, a few questions:
Do you think it’s plausible Hawk would have found himself caring for Adrienne as much as he does after knowing her for such a short time? Could it be, as Grimm suggests to Hawk, “You are certain you don’t want her just because she doesn’t want you and he wants her?”
Hawk shakes his head no, replying, “Grimm, I have no words for what she makes me feel.”
Okay, then! Do you believe his feelings are as deep as he seems to think?
We start to get to know Hawk as Adrienne does, and man, he seems like a helluva catch already, what with being incredibly handsome, the laird of a castle, with mad bedroom skills. What’s more, he is a self-taught architect, laying out the castle in the most useful and attractive way, and Adrienne really loses it when she stumbles across the nursery for the children that Hawk has yet to have that he designed in preparation:
This room was made for babies. Crafted with such loving hands that it was almost overwhelming. A cacophony of discordant emotions skittered through her before she shoved them away.
Doesn’t Hawk sound too good to be true?
But then there’s the falcon training thing.
He growled and gave her a long measuring look. “I should treat you like one of my falcons, wife.”
When she comes to the mews—you know, where he keeps his falcons—he explains how he trains his ladybird:
“First I seel my lady, which is to deprive her of vision, with a black silken hood...Then I blunt her talons...I fasten jesses and dainty bells to her ankles so that I can be aware of her every movement, for am in the dark too...Then a leash to tether her to her perch until I no longer need leash her. Until she becomes leashed of her own free will. And the best part—the long, slow process of binding her to me.”
So Hawk wants to engage in some light bondage play with Adrienne, it seems.
Are you still reading? Still engaged in the story? What do you think?
