Review: Falling for the Highlander, Lynsay Sands
Lynsay Sands’ Falling for the Highlander tells a pretty good romance as well as an interesting side plot. Here’s what we like and don’t like about it.
There’s really no other way to start this review other than to talk briefly about the cover. Lynsay Sands’ Falling for the Highlander has some actual Scottish buttcrack on the front cover, and suffice it to say that it is a very strange thing to be greeted in such a way by a romance novel. I’ve seen all sorts of artfully draped gowns, but our hero, poor man, seems to be leaning against a wall, without a shirt, his kilt awfully low on his hips, and without a heroine in sight.
I will attempt to clear this from my mind to review the contents of the actual book.
(Since you can’t see it above, you can find the full cover here.)
Anyway, Sands’ fourth entry in her Highlanders series stars Dougall Buchanan and Murine Carmichael. Murine’s half-brother has managed to lose her dowry and has resorted to trying to sell her for some new horses, since he’s lost those as well. She doesn’t take this lying down and heads off, running into the man who owned the horses: Dougall. Being that he’s a romance novel hero, he decides to see her safely to her friend, his sister, and romance ensues, as these things go.
On the whole, I found Falling for the Highlander a pleasant read. The non-romantic aspects of the plot were fairly suspenseful, and the romantic aspects of the plot were mostly well-done. All in all, I give it 3/5 stars. Let’s break it down.
The Good
Dougall, our hero, actually has some mental conflicts of his own throughout the novel. In fact, I had a great sense of interiority from the parts of the novel where he narrates. It’s actually a bit refreshing, since it also helped the romance be a bit more believable.
Murine, too, had some interesting aspects, and though she faints a lot, particularly earlier in the book, she also doesn’t sit idly by and let Dougall do all the work. Furthermore, her backstory actually provides a lot of the non-romantic plot elements. It’s not tough to see where things might be going with it, but that’s still fine. Romantically speaking, the two of them also have some good chemistry, and the fact that she’s actually Scottish as well means that this novel is refreshing. Normally, if you have a Scottish hero, you have an English heroine in a historical romance novel like this.
Additionally, I found the supporting cast relatively strong in this one. Dougall has a whole passel of brothers, and they each have different traits instead of all molding into one massive and very, very Scottish brother by the end of the book. (They’re all still pretty massive, but they remain separate entities. Dare I say they might star in some sort of spin-off series? Because I’d read one about Alick or Aulay Buchanan. Just saying.)
The Not-So-Good
Although the love scenes are pretty great once you get into them, they come on quite suddenly, which can leave a reader feeling a bit disoriented, especially since there’s usually a conspiracy happening somewhere. The first one also left me feeling a bit uncomfortable, since Murine isn’t necessarily in a good state to be consenting to anything. Our hero does feel bad about it afterwards, but it still just feels a bit odd.
Also, almost everyone in this book is very, very Scottish, as I previously mentioned. A reader might find their eyes glazing over at the usage of ye and no’ and ha’e in dialogue. Someone’s accent actually gets commented on at one point, which I found almost funny, but I think I was supposed to be more intrigued by it than anything else.
The Recommendation
Like most historical romance novels that make up a series, it’s certainly possible to read and enjoy Falling for the Highlander without having picked up any of Sands’ previous novels in the series. Someone who has read other ones might like it a touch more, but it’s still a very nice read with some strong characters.
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You can find Falling for the Highlander at the bookseller of your choice.