Review: Quick, Clean Read but Not as Entertaining as It Could Be
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 19, 2014
The book description is quite detailed, so I’ll just give my thoughts and opinion. This book had a lot of potential, but it just didn’t deliver. I love Scottish historicals, and this plot seemed interesting with strange noises at night in the castle, a possible romance, and a variety of characters. But the way the novel unfolded, the plot never developed any tension, the time period was conflicted,  the romance seemed to happen too quickly, and the characters remained flat, so that I didn’t really care much for them. The main problem was that too much of the story was told and not shown, so I was never drawn in. Neither the plot, the characters, nor the romance were developed, and this made the book more boring. It was even difficult to determine a time for the setting. They used lanterns, candles, and open fires for cooking, but the dialogue and thoughts were much more modern. The dialogue was also awkward and gushy, making the characters sound very immature. Many words were wrong, and some of them may have been unchecked scanning problems. Some examples are: “Bu” for “But,” “had” for “hand,” “then” for “than,” “ahall” for “shall,” “form” for “from,”  “is” for “if,” “talk” for “take.” “now” for “know,” “man” for “mean,” “feel” for “fell,” “Roberts” for “Robert,” “worked” for “worker,” and “rightm” for “right” (if this was supposed to be in Scottish dialect, it’s not). Aidan was very familiar with Bridget from the start, and her grandfather would not have likely allow the man to kiss her in front of him without any declaration or understanding. It was also unlikely Aidan would help with the dishes or the grandfather would light the fires when they had servants. Some quotations marks were omitted, and many sentences were poorly written:“Aidan reached for her, and without asked, put his arm around her for the last dance.”“…thinking how how attractive he looked….”“I’m only what you know we both want.”“What was that talk all about it.”Other scenes just didn’t sound reasonable and several points were never addressed. Aidan couldn’t have filled Bridget’s glass with her unaware, when the scene was told from her point of view. They talked of hospitals and sanatoriums, but if this was historical Scotland, those wouldn’t be in existence. Bridget had a long list of commitments with her musical talent, but, after her accident, these were never mentioned again. That Bridget ran out into a fierce storm to tell Aidan she loved him in case something happened to him and he was killed didn’t make much sense to me. In fact, Aidan’s love seemed more lustful and wanting to inherit her grandfather’s estate with Bridget than real love, and Bridget’s just hit her suddenly.On the positive side, the story is a clean, quick read. With a good editor it could still become entertaining. As it is, it’s rather ho-hum, but I didn’t really dislike it, so I rated it a three. At least, I got it in a free offer.