By: Johanna Lindsey

Paperback

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Follows the star-crossed romance of a strong-willed woman who vows that no man will ever capture her heart and the powerful warrior who is equally determined to fight for what he wants.

Stunning statuesque Brittany Callaghan isn't used to seeing Nordic gods in her tiny California town. But when the spectacular blond Viking—whose name is Dalden—turns up at her doorstep, Brittany knows her dream man is very real. Dalden claims to be a barbarian warrior—since Brittany's passion has been running red–hot since she first saw him, the sexy giant can fancy himself anything he pleases!The truth is a very rude awakening—for Dalden is exactly what he claims to be: a warrior to the depths of his soul from a place where the women always obey. Intelligent, independent Brittany isn't about to be subservient to any male—not even one who's everything she ever wanted in a lover. But the proud, powerful barbarian is accustomed to fighting for what he wants—and winning. And what her wants most of all . . . is Brittany.

About the Author

Johanna Lindsey has been hailed as one of the most popular authors of romantic fiction, with more than sixty million copies of her novels sold. World renowned for her novels of "first-rate romance" (New York Daily News), Lindsey is the author of forty-seven previous national bestselling novels, many of which reached the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Lindsey lives in Maine with her family.

In The Press

Publishers Weekly
Lindsey revisits alien worlds in her latest (after Warrior's Woman; You Belong to Me; etc.), and the result seems cobbled from Star Trek and bad sitcoms. Six-foot-tall construction worker Brittany Callaghan has had trouble finding a man who doesn't mind her height; nearly 30 and still a virgin, she's used to taking care of herself in the small town of Seaview, Calif. At the local mall, she meets Dalden Ly-San-Ter, a seven-foot barbarian alien stud who tells her he's pursuing a troublemaker from his "country" and asks for her help. Of course, the two are wildly attracted to each other, and Dalden's hokey, wisecracking supercomputer, Martha, has to remind him the mission comes first: his quarry is an alien king who's looking for subjects and planning to use a stolen device called an Altering Rod to take over Earth. The two giants quickly fall in love and succeed in capturing the errant king. Dalden declares his intention to make Brittany his "lifemate," and he and Martha reveal the truth about his origins when they take Brittany aboard their ship. Her stubborn disbelief which she clings to even as they arrive on Dalden's planet, Sha-Ka'an tests the patience of her warrior beau and any readers who should get that far. It takes a near-fatal incident to finally make her accept the truth, and she inadvertently introduces a peculiar version of feminism to her new, barbarian-run home. Despite the derivative plot and excruciating dialogue the aliens say things like "I love you to pieces" and "hold on to your socks" it's doubtful that Lindsey's legions of fans will mind the book's shortcomings in the least. Everyone else will be more entertained by Earth Girls Are Easy. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal
Brittany Callaghan is very tall and works in construction (saving to build her own house with her own labor), and she attributes these facts to her inability to find a man who will accept her stature and her job. Disappointed repeatedly, she can hardly believe it when a gorgeous 7'-tall man shows up at the local mall. She comes to his aid (he's obviously foreign) and dares to dream of their future together. Until she discovers that he is an alien, and they are on his ship headed to his planet though she believes that this is all a government-funded hoax. But how long can she suspend disbelief when her heart tells her that Dalden is her soul mate? Romance fans will recognize this scheme with an sf setting, as Brittany struggles against her feelings 'til the last although her ability to continue to deny that she is in space and then on another planet is more device than plot. Laural Merlington's narration is lively and engaging, though her voice for Dalden is a bit too robotic at times. As is usual with this producer, voices coming over a speaker or phone (and the former is the case with the computer with which Dalden is in almost constant communication) are given a slight echo chamber effect. Recommended for romance collections. Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews
Astoundingly original story that may stun fans of Lindsey's Home for the Holidays: the first interplanetary romance novel! Near-giantess Brittany Callaghan, hitting 30, lives near San Francisco. Her dreams: to design and build her own home, and to find a really tall, well-formed man to love and surrender her virginity to. And she meets. . . . Dalden Ly-San-Ter, a gigantic prince whose home planet is Krystan, although he has lived all his life on Sha-Ka'an, where he's a Sha-Ka'ani warrior and where Sha-Ka'ani warriors had once enslaved all the Krystani women—though Dalden's mother Tedra has freed them again. So this is as well the first interplanetary feminist romance novel. Brittany is one bold, likable big snip, a Judy Davis or early Kate Hepburn—and a real match for Dalden.

Chapter One

The Ly-San-Ters were finally going home. This visit to his mother's homeworld of Kystran had been a much longer journey than Dalden Ly-San-Ter had counted on. Still he was glad he had elected to go along. Unlike his sister, Shanelle, who had gone there to study for a while, he had never been to Kystran before. He'd heard much about it from his mother, had seen computer-simulated pictures of life there, but it simply wasn't the same as seeing it firsthand. It was also something he hoped to never have to experience again.

But it was where his mother came from, and he felt he understood her a little better by seeing firsthand the things that made her so different from the Sha-Ka'ani people whom she now lived among. He had always been torn, nearly literally, in two by his parents. His mother, Tedra, represented all that was modern and "civilized," while his father, Challen, represented old beliefs and what most worlds termed barbaric.

There was no compatibility between two social cultures of such complete and utter differences, and yet his parents had managed to become lifemates anyway. Not an easy thing for them, and not easy for their children, who grew up wanting to please them both.

Dalden had finally had to make a choice, and thankfully, his mother not only supported it, but had expected it. He was a ShaKa'ani warrior, after all. He could not be that warrior if he was going to slip every once in a while and talk as she did, or worry whether he would be displeasing her. So he had fully embraced his father's ways and never regretted it.

His sister, on the other hand, was comfortable with both cultures, could be adutiful warrior's lifemate, as she now was, adhering to rules and laws that she knew were antiquated by most standards but worked well on Sha-Ka'an. Or she could go out and discover new worlds, as she had once planned to do.

Shanelle hadn't been the least surprised by her first visit to Kystran. Dalden had been nothing but surprised.

He had thought it would be fun. He had expected to be amazed. He even knew the language as well as his own, since, unlike learning it from a Sublim Tape, he already knew all the words that otherwise might not match up without explanations. But nothing could have prepared him for feeling so out of place, for being in a near-constant state of awe. His mother called it culture shock."

Even after some of the awe died down, which it did because they ended up staying longer than planned, he still couldn't be comfortable in a land where he wasn't just considered a giant, he was a giant by their standards.

Even during the short time they had stopped on the planet Sunder last year to collect Shanelle, his "runaway" sister, Dalden had felt he was dealing with children, those people had been so small.

The Kystrani weren't that small, but even their tallest was a good foot shorter than Dalden, and their average a lot shorter than that. It was distinctly uncomfortable to always be looking down on people, and to have those people always staring at you in fear or shock.

The fear was understandable. Some of the Kystrani still remembered all those years ago when warriors like Dalden had tried to take over their planet and had succeeded for a time, enslaving their women, taking away their rights, holding their leader hostage. It was Dalden's mother, with the help of his father, who had defeated those warriors and won Kystran its freedom again.

Tedra had become a national heroine in so doing, and that was the main reason their trip had been extended. They had gone because her longtime friend and old boss, Garr Ce Bernn, director of Kystran, was retiring and had requested their presence for the ceremony. Because it had been more than twenty years since she had been back to her homeworld, he had also arranged for her to be honored while she was there. This amounted to not one but many ceremonies, in many different cities.

Tedra De Arr Ly-San-Ter did not take honoring well. It embarrassed her. To her, she had just been doing her job as a Sec 1 back then, which was to rescue her boss and put him back in power -- exactly what she'd done. She had then retired from her life of security enforcement to live with her lifemate on his planet of Sha-Ka'an and had never regretted it. All that honoring had put her in a testy mood that was still with her, even though it was over and they were nearing home.

The trouble was, as Dalden had heard Martha, his mother's Mock II computer, point out more than once, there had been no way to let his father know why they hadn't returned home two weeks ago when they were expected to. Long-distance communication did not include reaching across two star systems.

The distance had been shortened by the discovery of gaali stones on Sha-Ka'an as an energy source that far surpassed anything else known to either of their star systems, but communicating between those star systems was still only possible by the old-fashioned way of sending a ship within range. They would be home by then. So Tedra expected to be facing one very angry lifemate for the worry her longer absence would have caused him.

Dalden was merely amused, but his mother, who would hear no reassurances from him, was determined to fret and worry over the matter, He knew his father would be worried, extremely so. Challen didn't like it when he couldn't protect his lifemate himself, which was why he had "insisted" on...

Heart of a Warrior. Copyright by Johanna Lindsey. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

ISBN: 9780380814794
ISBN-10: 038081479X
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 368
Published: July 2004
Dimensions (cm): 17.1 x 10.2  x 3.0
Weight (kg): 0.204