My Darling Arrow by Saffron A. Kent seems to be a hit with a lot of readers, especially fans of Ms. Kent’s work. I too am a fan of Ms. Kent, since having stumbled upon the greatest love story ever written on the unrequited love theme, i.e. Unrequited by the author. Since then, I have read her entire backlist of published books (which is not a gigantic number, if you are wondering), and loved almost all of them. Dreams of 18 which was published prior to this was where it all started going downhill; I found the story to be regurgitated version of her earlier works, with just enough tantalizing elements thrown into the mix to make it wholesome. My Darling Arrow, I am sorry to say, is incomparably much worse.

The debut in the St. Mary’s Rebels series, My Darling Arrow brings together 23 year old Arrow Carlisle and 18 year old Salem Salinger, the latter, who for all intents and purposes would not have been at St. Mary’s had it not been for her “rebellious” act of trying to leave home in the middle of the night. Salem and Arrow’s lives had crossed paths when Salem and her sister Sarah had gone to live with Arrow and his mother. Salem had fallen in love with Arrow on first sight at the tender age of ten, while Arrow had gone ahead and fallen in love with Sarah, who is of the same age as he.

Years go by, until St. Mary’s is the setting and testing grounds in which Salem once again comes face to face with the love of her life who would never be hers. That is until she finds out what truly happened to bring Arrow to her turf, tempting her beyond reason to say yes to everything that Arrow proposes. While I wanted to love the story so much, it fell flat on so many levels that it saddens me to even write a review as such.

I found My Darling Arrow to be too saccharine for my tastes. I found the depth of or rather the lack of in-depth characterization for both Arrow and Salem to be problematic. I wanted more than repetitive descriptions of Arrow’s unbelievably hot physique and ramblings of Salem’s mind when it comes to Arrow and how much she wants him. I grew tired of the lack of anything substantial happening up till towards the latter half of the book, which I believe was one of the biggest reasons for my lack of enjoyment in the story.

The fact that I found neither Salem nor Arrow endearing enough rests on the reasoning highlighted above – if you do not know enough about the characters you are reading about, and everything is either about how manly Arrow is and/or how emotionally wrecked both of them are in their different ways; I am guessing it all just ends up being tedious to read about from a certain point onward.

Sexy and sinfully hot sex scenes is something I have always counted on Ms. Kent to deliver, but alas, even that failed to materialize in a large way because there was just too much time spent trying to appease readers who would have had problems with Salem and Arrow getting together with Sarah in the picture and painting this picture of a heroine who ticks all those boxes when it comes to modern reader tastes.

I wonder whatever happened to the Ms. Kent whose books I fell head over heels in love, books that I keep recommending to other like-minded readers and receiving rave and glowing reviews of afterwards. There was such heart and force behind her previous books which slayed all my emotions and then some, the author who did not care about the conventional norms in romance writing and was not afraid of pushing the boundaries, staying true to the course of her characters.

Recommended for die-hard fans of Ms. Kent. I for one, am sorely disappointed.

Final Verdict: My Darling Arrow was unpalatable on so many levels; the despondency I feel is one that is indescribable.

Favorite Quotes

He leans over and kisses the corner of my mouth and I freeze.
My eyes go wide when he flicks his tongue out and licks that corner too before whispering, “Tell you what. You waited for me, didn’t you? You worried over me. Not to mention, you’re my friend. So maybe I can give you a little something.”
“Something like what?”
He kisses the corner of my mouth again, a small, soft, soothing kiss.
“Your first kiss,” he whispers, his hot breath fanning over my mouth. “I told you I wouldn’t but maybe I can break my own rule.”
“You can?”
“Uh-huh. For you.”
“For me?”
“Yeah. Just to be nice.”
Oh God.
Thank God.

He curses and strains, his cock expanding inside my channel. His head rears back, his spine bowing. I see his sweaty, hot body become tight and stone-like as his cock jerks inside of me and spurts the first dose of his cum in the latex.
We’re both coming together then.
He’s pulsing inside of me like I’m pulsing around him. I scratch his ridged abdomen and his hand fists my hair at the scalp.
I realize that’s what he wanted to hear too – that I’m his.
That I’m my Arrow’s, and I smile again.

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