Review: Short, But Not Sweet
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2012
Sarah Stewart "Otagogirl"  gives a great synopsis of the plot of The High Sheriff of Huntingdon;  I don't think I could explain it better, so I won't!I felt like this book fell a little flat and the length was certainly a huge part of why it didn't work for me.  The first three chapters of the novella were a great start; Elspeth seemed like she was going to be a tough cookie and that Alistair was the typical rough around the edges guy who would get polished by the heroine.  It didn't really happen like that, though.  For starters Alistair wasn't really bad at all (and I don't think that is a spoiler because it's pretty obvious from the beginning who the big creep is in the story) and he was, as described by Elspeth, a very elegant type of guy.  Elspeth meanwhile becomes pretty pathetic pretty fast - she goes from running away to refusing to leave in roughly twelve hours.  There wasn't a lot of romance or even attraction from my perspective - as soon as she heard about the prophecy something seemed to switch off in her brain.  I actually find the product description a little misleading - it says Alistair never "expects to fall in love with her, or to let her tame his wicked ways."  I didn't really feel like either of those things happened in the book.  If she tames his wicked ways, it is sometime in the future and again, he's not that wicked.  And does he fall in love?  I think he says he does, but there is certainly no reason I can say why besides there is a rhyming prophecy of which he is afraid.  The best part of the book was actually Alistair's mother who is a witch; she was pretty funny in the few pages in which she appeared.  I think if the story got fleshed out and wasn't so focused on Alistair's cousin it would have been quite good!