Review: Decent, but not great
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2011
Since the product description is so vague for this novella (about 100 pages on your kindle), here is a basic plot description:Circa 1700 ~ Anne, a lady in waiting at the English court, wakes to find herself being abducted from the Scottish castle of her distant cousins, which she only arrived at 1 day ago.  The 4 druken Scotsmen who kidnap her sober-up by dawn and realize she is not the woman with whom they meant to abscond.  Realizing that with the morning light upon them, they cannot sneak her back into the castle so her honor and reputation are ruined...unless Alexander, the most handsome of the four blundering kidnappers, handfasts with her.  Anne is adverse to the idea of handfasting, but she is attracted to Alex and Alex reveals his charm through a private conversation before tricking Anne into saying the pledge of handfasting.  Alex also reveals that there is a (low) price on his head put there by the English so he is a wanted man.  They head to Alexander's clan's castle where he is the 3rd son of the reigning lord and once there their passion unfolds quickly.  Unfortunately, Anne's tyrannical father shows up after just 1.5 days and recognizes Alex as the man wanted by the English crown.  Will Anne finally start to make her own choices or will she continue to let her life be decided by others?Overall, I enjoyed the plot line, although it's nothing new (kidnapping, handfasting, girl must choose between new husband she doesn't really know and loyalty to her family, etc.).  There isn't a lot of character development because it's a 100 page book, but Anne and Alex's conversations reveal a charming hero and a woman who struggles to hide her naturally bold personality.  I think the beginning is weak as the story starts in the midst of the kidnapping with no explanation as to what is going on and I found it hard to believe that Anne wouldn't have immediately fully woken as soon as someone touched her.  Who sleeps that deeply on their second night in a completely strange place?  But I did enjoy Alex's charm and the budding feelings between the two main characters.  My biggest issue with this story was the language in the love scenes.  I actually thought the author started out doing a great job with the initial kisses during the handfasting and then started the consumation scene well, but suddenly lapsed into the most overly verbose and metaphorical language I've ever read.  Mentions of "ripe fruit" and all sorts of nonsense really ruined the culmination of the erotic scene.  For me, this story read as an early effort from the author (although I'm not sure if it is).  There were moments in the story where the language, conversation, and plot really worked and wasn't the same old highland romance.  But then there were an equal number of times where the plot line wasn't properly laid out or the language was so over the top as to be insipid.If you're a lover of Highland romance stories, then go for it...it's only $0.99.  But otherwise, I think you can skip this one.