Author: Laurin Wittig
Length: 9 hrs 13 min
Highlander Betrayed is the first in the Guardians of the Targe trilogy, about a powerful stone controlled by the chosen Guardian, that protects Scotland from its enemies and invasion. I listened to the audio version courtesy of Kindle Unlimited.
The book’s main character, Nicholas Fitz Hugh, is an English spy sent by the King to Scotland to pose as a Highlander in order to track down the Targe so that the King can invade and claim the land. Nicholas’s dad was an Englishman who raped his Scottish mother, so he was raised in Scotland for a bit before ending up in England. He quickly adopts a Scottish accent and uses his abbreviated experience as a Scotland native to infiltrate the MacAlpin clan after he and his fellow spy Archie witness a stone wall collapse. This leads to Nicholas saving two women, Rowan and Scocha, who turn out to be the niece and daughter of the current MacAlpin clan chief, respectively. Archie, however, stays hidden and grows resentful while Nicholas begins to grow fond of the Highlanders and Rowan.
Nicholas is not the most sympathetic main character. Rowan is hesitant to trust him but after he says and does all the right things, which include appealing to the needs of Rowan’s very sick aunt Elspeth-current Guardian of the Targe and wife to the chief -she eventually falls for him. Nicholas is constantly mulling over the inner turmoil of having to decide whether to betray Rowan or England, and it becomes tiresome after a while. He’s one of the few duplicitous main characters I’ve read where I actually wouldn’t mind him getting found out and punished for it, because he is clearly in the wrong and only bringing harm to the unaware MacAlpin clan. Who is he to deserve love with Rowan, and acceptance into the clan after he’s led a life of lies?
In addition to rooting against the main character, the plot itself never really grabbed me. There’s a “twist” about the new Guardian of the Targe that I guess we were not supposed to see coming a mile away? There’s no action really until the very end of the book, which is resolved enough to close out this first installment but not so much that the trilogy can’t continue. Every time I would put the audiobook on I was never really excited about it. I just had gotten so far into it that I was committed to seeing it through because I’ve marked several recent audiobooks through KU as DNF and I wanted to be able to finish one.
The story has potential, but ultimately was just too boring for me, with a main character I didn’t really care about.
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