My Fair Highlander by Mary Wine
Kensington (August 2011)
Trade: $14.00; ebook: $11.90
ISBN: 9780758242075
Favorite Lines: “There was something intensely satisfying about having his weight on top of her, something that she had never expected.” (p. 199)
Jemma Ramsden is a wild thing in a noblewoman’s body—so thinks Gordon Dwyre, Laird Barras, watching her galloping on horseback through her brother’s lands. Bold, headstrong, beautiful: the perfect bride for a lusty Scots warrior. He might be able to convince her, too, if she would hear his suit. But Barras doesn’t wait to be handed what he wants. When he’s forced to rescue her from English ruffians, he makes sure she stays safe—by locking her in his castle.
Jemma is hardly an eager captive. She has no horse and no freedom, and she is an Englishwoman in a hostile Scots keep: a stranger without work or friend. Barras seems determined to charm her—even tempt forbidden desires, a daring game that leaves Jemma desperate for more. But with passion, love, and a new life within her grasp, Jemma is in more danger than even she knows. . .
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to move his sporran or peek under his kilt. I love the cover!
My Fair Highlander is Mary Wine’s newest Scottish romance. It features an alpha hero and a spitfire heroine. One of the satisfying things about the story is the heroine’s knowledge of herself. She knows when she’s being irritable and attempts to fix the problem. It shows she is a grown woman and not a little girl playing the I-want-you-but-I-need-to-grow-up-first game.
Despite really liking the story, I gotta admit that the sex in the story really threw me at first. After the hero rescues the heroine, sex is thrown into the mix. No, they don’t jump into the sack, but on their way to the hero’s castle the heroine begins to notice their intimate position.
She drew in his scent and shivered. It was dark and musky, touching off a strange reaction deep inside her belly, a quivering that became a throbbing at the top of her sex. Each motion of the horse sent her clitoris sliding against the leather of the saddle, and the scent of his skin intensified the sensation somehow.
See, it’s not that the sex is bad. It’s that the sex is unexpected. I’m sure it’s done to introduce the instant attraction between the hero and the heroine, but it didn’t excite me for the characters. It raised my eyebrows. Later the sex scenes about burn the pages.
My Fair Highlander is a comfort, romance novel. There are no mysterious twists or huge surprises, but that’s okay. Why? Well, because the story is one that I’ll pick up time after time because it takes me to Scotland. You know where the alphas are super alphas who love deeper than any other man alive. I know what I’m getting when I pick up My Fair Highlander: a romance with a clear, happily ever after ending. Not a series. Not an attempt to impress me with the author’s wonderful ability to get me going in one direction only to show me her cleverness by ending up in some strange location. And most definitely not an attempt to add a twist the historical romance into a young adult or paranormal book.
In the end, My Fair Highlander is a historical romance for grown women who like their men hot, hard and willing to give it all up for their women.
Scooper Speaks 