Author: Vonda Sinclair
Length: 245 pgs.
I picked this book up as a freebie on Amazon and added the audiobook companion for $1.99.
This book was decently written, it was just…boring.
The story begins with the heroine, the English Lady Gwyneth, finding an unconscious man from a rival Highlander clan following a skirmish on her own clan’s land. The ruler of her clan, a distant relative named Donal MacIrwin, is cruel to his own people and she has no loyalty to him. She finds a peace treaty in the unconscious Scot’s pocket and decides to save his life so she hauls him back to her home where she and her friend Moira live along with Gwyneth’s young son Rory. Her own husband died in a previous battle, so she is a widow. However Gwyneth’s history is a little complicated – she apparently became pregnant by an English Lord out of wedlock, which was quite the scandal. When said Lord shuns her, she’s banished by her father to the Highlands where she’s married off and her new husband raises Rory as his own. Sounds sweet and all that, except the new husband is abusive and married her for his own conniving reasons. So it’s not that tragic that he’s dead by the time we start our story.
When the unconscious Highlander awakens we learn that he’s Laird Alistair MacGrath, head of the rival clan. He and his men were ambushed after attempting to broker a peace meeting with the MacIrvins– hence, the presence of a peace treaty in his pocket.
Anycrap, Alistair and Gwyneth have an immediate chemistry according to their internal dialogue, but he takes off in the middle of the night for his own clan’s land. The MacIrwins see him escaping and trace Alistair back to Gwyneth’s cottage where they burn it down and murder Moira. Gwyneth and Rory run for their lives and end up on Alistair’s land, where he takes them in. Many people in Alistair’s clan aren’t too happy about this.
The next 50% of the story is Alistair and Gwyneth internal monologuing about their feelings for each other, with a few skirmishes thrown in to cause more conflict between the clans, and a side plot in which Rory’s real father concocts a scheme to steal his son from Gwyneth as he’s no longer able to produce an heir for whatever reason. But mostly we get to listen to Gwyneth’s excuses why she can’t be with Alistair, despite having amazing sex with him on more than one occasion. There’s only so many times you can listen to her shame and anxiety about being socially shunned for hooking up with another dude out of wedlock. I understand this is historical romance, and a very different time for sexuality, but Gwyneth comes across like a total limp noodle who has to poop on everyone’s party. Even when Alistair asks her to marry him she whines and acts conflicted, saying she wants Rory to have a good life outside of the Highlands, and blah blah blah. Then she hooks up with Alistair yet again, and we get to hear about her post-coital guilt, again.
Gwyneth is a very tiresome character, and the slowly-built side plot combined with a hasty resolution that still somehow manages to seem drawn out made this feel like the book that would never end. At under 250 pages it should have been a quick read, but by the time I had less than 20 pages to go I was near ready to tear my hair out.
Maybe a feistier, more interesting main female character and better executed climax and resolution would have made this book a little more exciting. But as it was, 2.5 stars is all I can give.
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