Celta, a place of magic, telepathic animal companions, and romance . . . Lost Heart, a story rife with hidden agendas and dangerous secrets.

Barton Clover, Chief of Security for his large and noble family, is deeply aware of his responsibilities. When two young relatives repudiate the family and later disappear, he's determined to find them and convince them to return. He has no time or inclination for love . . . but his family disapproves of his nothing-but-work life. They decree that he must visit a matchmaker or lose his position.

Enata Licorice, a respected librarian, has been doing research in a mysterious records vault . . . and is finding odd blanks in her memory. Lonely, she yearns for a good husband and arranges a matchmaking session of her own.

It's love at first sight for Barton and Enata, but both are crucial members of their families. Clans who practice opposite lifestyles. And both families demand the couple's time and attention, causing strife.

While trying to resolve their issues, Barton discovers Enata's secret and they must work as a couple to resolve the puzzle that includes Barton's missing relatives -- if they dare. And if they fail, more than their own lives are lost.

Review 

I am thrilled that Robin Owens is venturing into self publishing and there are lots of things to like about this Celta novella.

The couple and their families are great. I like that the romance is a match and not heartmates.

I am not thrilled with the mystery of the book and the reveal but I will withhold judgement until it gets more revealed.

If you just love this world, you will enjoy this voyage. 3.5

In Heart Quest, Saille T'Willow gave his HeartGift to Trif so that she could deposit it in a public area. The HeartGift got picked up by a variety of people before finally finding its way to Saille's HeartMate, Dufleur Thyme. Unfortunately, the timing was awful, and the sudden fluctuation in Dufleur's Flair brought her to the attention of a group of people who were ritually killing people with unstable Flair. She almost died.

This book continues Saille and Dufleur's story. Saille now knows who his HeartMate is and hopes to pursue Dufleur more openly. First, though, he has to wait for her to officially accept his HeartGift (or at least keep it in her possession for long enough to satisfy society and the legal system). The problem? She keeps throwing it out or locking it up. Dufleur wants nothing to do with HeartMates and love. All she cares about is her work. Although her beloved father blew himself and the Thyme Residence up while conducting his time-related experiments, Dufleur remains convinced that his experiments weren't dangerous. In an effort to clear her father's name, she illegally uses her Flair to continue her father's research and prove the usefulness of his work.

Saille has more hurdles to overcome than just Dufleur's unwillingness to accept his HeartGift. First, there's his discovery that his grandmother, the previous D'Willow, was so determined to keep him from taking over as the new head of the Family that she spent years matching couples even though her matchmaking Flair no longer worked. If this information gets out, it could ruin the Family. Second, there's the fact that D'Willow is technically still alive, held in stasis until a cure can be found for the disease that's killing her. If she's ever cured, it's guaranteed that she'll try to take over as head of the Willows again.

I liked both Dufleur and Saille well enough in the previous book. The reasoning behind Saille's decision to send his HeartGift out made sense. I didn't think the implications through, though, until I began reading this book.

Okay, so in Heart Quest, Ilex's HeartGift didn't make an appearance until the end of the book, after he and Trif became friends and then lovers. Heart Dance flipped things around so that the relationship began with the HeartGift, and I loathed it. You have to understand, HeartGifts are basically little lust bombs. A person who is near their HeartMate's unshielded HeartGift finds themselves suddenly overwhelmed by lust. They mentally connect with their HeartMate for a bout of what is basically dream sex. Public orgasms are a possibility. And Saille sent his HeartGift out so that his HeartMate could potentially stumble across it anywhere. In addition to that, after Dufleur was attacked in Heart Quest, Saille's HeartGift was retrieved and he was given the option of taking it back. Since his HeartMate had been revealed to him, it wasn't strictly necessary to send it out again, but he did it anyway. So she could potentially stumble across it anywhere, again. Like I said, the implications didn't really hit me until I started reading Heart Dance.

Saille kept emphasizing that he wanted to be strictly ethical in his pursuit and courtship of Dufleur, but it was such a lie. There was even a scene in which he checked the rules about HeartGifts to see if there was anything he could take advantage of, in order to pressure Dufleur into accepting and marrying him.

I wanted Dufleur to be angrier, more forceful in her rejection of Saille's HeartGift, because he quite frankly deserved it. I wanted Saille to realize that what he'd done and thought of doing was wrong. If he had to be the other half of this couple, I wanted him to at least do some serious groveling. Sadly, I instead got a story in which, near the end, Dufleur was considered the one who had done the most harm and the one who had to grovel.

For people who were supposed to be HeartMates, Dufleur and Saille were incredibly badly matched. They spent most of the book hurting each other and hiding important information from each other. Dufleur didn't tell Saille her suspicions about her father's death, and Saille didn't tell Dufleur about D'Willow matching couples even though she'd lost her Flair. They only seemed to do well together in bed, and even that was questionable due to the influence of Saille's HeartGift.

On the plus side, I was mildly interested in the mystery of what really happened the night Dufleur's father died, and the developments involving Dufleur's Flair kept my attention. The scene with the remnants of the Thyme Residence was wonderful, but then I'm partial to anything involving the Residences. Also, Fairyfoot, Dufleur's Fam, was delightfully clever in her greediness. If only she hadn't been such a terrible Fam, betraying Dufleur to Saille because she wanted to live in Saille's Residence.

I have two unread books in this series. I had thought I could power through all my Celta books in one go, but Heart Dance has significantly reduced my enthusiasm. Heart Change will have to wait. I will say this: Heart Dance made me even happier that I never bought Heart Fate, Tinne Holly's book. I can't imagine how it could be anything but unpleasant.

Extras:

• A list of characters
• The Holly/Blackthorn family tree
• A map of Celta

Rating Note:

I had been considering giving this 2 stars until Owens set things up so that Dufleur had to apologize to Saille. The HeartGifts being invoked a few more times didn't help. They were such ordinary objects that I couldn't help but laugh during what was supposed to be two very emotional moments. Why are some HeartGifts useful objects when they render HeartMates completely useless?

(Original review, including read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Trif Clover desperately wants to find her HeartMate, to the point where she has decided to risk ridicule and embarrassment by going door to door throughout the city and looking for him with her charmkey. What she doesn't realize is that he's living in her apartment building.

Guardsman Ilex Winterberry made sure to wait until after Trif had searched her building before moving in. He wishes he could court her properly but 1) he's 25 years her senior and feels that he's far too old for her and 2) he's had visions that tell him he'll die soon, and HeartMates always die within a year of each other. He refuses to cut Trif's life short. All he'll allow himself to do is watch over her and be her friend. As he investigates a recent series of murders, he worries about Trif's similarity to the victims and does his best to keep her safe.

It's been years since I last read the four books prior to this one. Although this was a reread, it wasn't the best way to jump back into the series. Ilex's murder investigation led to him talking to lots of characters I knew had been in the previous books but otherwise couldn't remember much about. It wasn't much of a problem that I could barely remember T'Ash, Danith, Straif, and Mitchella's books, but not remembering Holm and Lark's book (Heart Duel) definitely was. The Holly family's curse, caused by the head of the household's disapproval of Holm and Lark's marriage, had a prominent place in Heart Quest, and I couldn't for the life of me remember why T'Holly had been against their marriage.

Another thing I had forgotten about this series was the cheesiness of its setup. The planet Celta was colonized 405 years prior to Heart Quest, and apparently all or most of the colonists were Celtic pagans (I think?). Either they arrived with psi abilities (Flair) already in place, or something about the planet gave some of them psi abilities. At three points throughout their lives, Celtans with Flair go through Passages that (I think – again, it's been a while since I read those earlier books) help their Flair settle and, in some cases, allow them to connect with their HeartMates (soulmates). HeartMate relationships are supposed to be strong and wonderful, but not all HeartMates manage to find each other or even want that kind of close connection if they do.

The world also has something called Fams, telepathic animals that can bond with particular people. I love cats, but I have to admit that Owens' cat Fams tend to annoy me. I think it has something to do with the way she has them speak – their first person singular pronouns are always capitalized, to show their lofty opinions of themselves. Greyku, Trif's vain kitten Fam, was particularly bad. She either didn't know or didn't care that Trif wasn't wealthy and begged for things like jeweled collars and an artist who could dye her fur. I liked Vertic, Ilex's fox Fam, much more – he came across as being more settled and mature, and he certainly didn't talk as much.

Anyway, the first half of the book spent a bit too much time on characters who weren't directly related to this book's main story – the Holly family curse, Danith and the Fams, and Saille T'Willow's drastic decision to find his HeartMate by sending his HeartGift out into the world where anything could happen to it. Thankfully, the book felt more focused in the second half. Trif finally learned who her HeartMate was and got the chance to change his mind about being with her, and Ilex's murder investigation finally began to uncover promising information.

The murder investigation was so-so. Although Ilex's methods were intriguing, a blend of normal and psi evidence-gathering, a recording of one survivor's memories, and little magical poppets that could eventually point Ilex and other guardsmen to the murderers, the murderers and their motives wouldn't be worth much more than a yawn to the average mystery reader.

The progression of Ilex and Trif's romance was much more fun, although I have to admit that there were times when the age gap between them was a bit much for me. The way Ilex obsessed about it in the first half of the book kept reminding me of it, and there were several times when the gap between Trif and Ilex's maturity seemed as great as the gap between Greyku and Vertic. I could understand Ilex's fear that his death would end up killing Trif too if they bonded, so it was frustrating when Trif kept ignoring that fear and saying she didn't care.

On the one hand, this book reminded me why I hadn't read any of this series in years. The romance could have been better, the mystery was so-so, and the Fams tended to be annoying. On the other hand, I still had fun. Ilex was a great character, several of the side characters were intriguing, and I liked the fantasy and sci-fi elements despite their cheesy aspects. It's too bad the AI-run Residences don't have a more prominent place in the series.

Additional Comments:

I noticed four typos, two of them within a couple pages of each other. In one instance, the typo interfered with the meaning of the sentence enough that it took me a few beats to figure out what the character was saying.

Extras:

The beginning of the book includes a map of Celta.

Rating Note:

I debated between 3 and 3.5 stars. It's probably more of a 3-star book, but I liked Ilex enough to bump it up to 3.5.

(Original review, including read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

[Background info: I read books 1-4 of the Celta series many years ago. I recently reread book 5, Heart Quest, and I don’t think I’ve ever read any of the books beyond that one.]

Looking over my Celta books, I noticed I had books 5 through 9, except for book 7, Heart Fate. I took a closer look at book 7 and realized why I’d passed on that one. It’s Tinne Holly’s book.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Celta series, the books are all basically soulmate romances (called HeartMates here). In Heart Quest it’s mentioned that Tinne Holly knows who his HeartMate is and that she’s already married. I can’t remember if the earlier books gave more details, but it seemed to me like Tinne decided to try to move on.

Unlike a lot of romance readers, I actually like the soulmate trope. However, even I’m willing to admit that authors often use it as a crutch and/or avoid really digging into its implications. Tinne’s situation was interesting, because it seemed to show that not only do HeartMate relationships not always work out, but that the people involved can still end up in happy relationships. Tinne and his wife, Genista, respected each other and were mutually attracted to each other. Their marriage hit a serious bump at the end of Heart Quest, and a book that focused on them trying to get past that, even though they weren’t HeartMates, could have been really good. However, a quickie look at the Amazon page for Heart Fate tells me

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say with this post. I suppose Heart Quest just got me thinking about soulmate romances. They can be fun, but some aspects of them are just disappointing. ::sigh::