Review: The Best Author To Read When You Need a Smile!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 7, 2014
I had just finished the author's full length novel JUST A KISS AWAY when I saw this one available in the Kindle Lending Library.  Whenever I need a pick-me-up, from now on I will reach for a Jill Barnett novel.  Not only is the author an eloquent and masterful writer, she has a knack for writing delightfully funny stories packed with witty dialogue and downright comical characters.  But don't worry---there is still more than enough romance to make your Kindle screen fog up.This novella was funny from page 1 until the very end.  Trying to help her starving clan, Grace McNish plans to ambush a wagon caravan stuffed with supplies for the dastardly clann McNabb's Michaelmas celebration.  There will be enough food from that one heist to feed her people for months.  Leaping out of her hiding place from a tree---well, to be more accurate, I should say "falling out of the tree"--Grace managed to knock out the biggest, most handsome McNabb she's ever seen.  The only trouble?  She doesn't know it, but he's no McNabb.Colin Campbell, the Earl of Argyll and Lord of the Isles, is one of the most powerful men in Scotland and has come to try to mediate between warring clans.  When a screaming banshee fell from above and knocked him off his horse, curiosity got the better of him.  Playing along with her game, he figures he can learn more about the McNish and McNabb fued by pretending to be her captive than by listening to clan leaders.  Something about the barefoot, mud-covered, beauty wrapped in a threadbare tartan tells him there's more to the McNish side of the story than he's been told.Grace's rag-tag band of reivers, accompanied by a piper so awful that she makes people cover their ears and just surrender, provide some absolutely side-splitting comic relief.  It was absolutely, positively entertaining all the way through.  My only disappointment---it ended.  I wish I could've read 300 more pages of these characters!