Karin Williams' devastatingly handsome project officer has a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder. Rowan Marsden expected a male engineer and he's not giving Karin an inch. Working conditions are...tense. Even...worse, she must share on-site accommodations with the sexy Brit who she fears will break her heart. What's a girl to do? If Rowan had his way, he'd never work with a woman. Yet as Karin demonstrates her expertise on the job, he cannot deny his growing respect for her—or his desire. He wants the passion she offers, but not the commitment. Until a horrendous accident at the project site threatens Karin's life, and proves that even a wounded man is destined to love....
Reviewer: QueenBee
There aren’t many romances out there whose main heroine is an engineer. What makes Taming Rowan even more unique is the fact that the author herself worked as one so we are sure to get all the details right.
Karin is an American who is sent to England as an expert in satellite antenna installation. Rowan is the British project manager she’d be working under. He’s mistrustful of women after a bad marriage and deeply resents having to accept a female engineer on his all-male crew, Karin is intent to prove her worth. Both of them are taken aback by the sizzling attraction they feel at first sight - or rather at first fight.
It isn’t always easy to explore this attraction in an isolated location with the crew around them and under a lot of pressure from work (which is indeed described in loving detail). In addition Rowan is stubborn and severely burned by his previous experience at commitment. It takes a life-threatening situation and a very difficult decision on Karin's part to set one's priorities straight - and then it's not about taming Rowan anymore.
However, there are things that are difficult to swallow for a non-American reader. For example, Rowan's family being idle landed gentry and owning a castle. For one thing, the days when the English aristocracy could live off their land are long past. Now it's the other way round - if you want to hold on to your lands you have to find a really lucrative job because the taxes are sky high. For another, the gentry are not the same as nobility, they never owned castles, and a house admittedly built in 19 century would hardly be called one. A manor - yes, but castle? I sometimes got the feeling that the English and their customs are as foreign and exotic to the author as the Arabian sheiks to the rest of us. I was also put off by the heroine's apparently obvious physical resemblance to the hero's ex-wife and how everybody who knew the woman were compelled to comment upon it.
I did enjoy the story despite all that. Ms. Barrett used her own experience to give us insight into a profession still dominated by men, then, when it was first published and now as well. I'm really looking forward to reading more of her work. 4 stars
Release Date: May 2011
Publisher: Turquoise Morning Press
See the original review on goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/226188419
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