Review: I want a highlander too!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 16, 2014
Wishing for a Highlander finds a 21st lady thrust back into the 16th century to the arms of a highlander. When we first meet Melanie she has a relatively good life - she has a job at a museum she enjoys and has a good relationship with her parents who live elsewhere. But she's going to be a single mom soon. I thought the way we learned about her ex was a little too thin. I think such a momentous possibly traumatizing event could been developed a little more. But maybe it would disrupted the flow. Regardless I still liked the characters and story.She's lonely and when looking at an artifact once belong to Carnegie she's immediately thrown back into time and lands right in the middle of a skirmish. A highlander sees her and approaches her and all the tropes of a sexy highlander coming to rescue are brought up, but he's not what she was expecting. However, soon enough what she is expecting comes and swoops her up.Darcy (is that an accurate 16th century Highlander name?) has his own issues. A woman he brushed off one too many times ridiculed him for being *ahem* large under his kilt. After that incident he's always believed he could never lie with a woman for fear of harming her. Again I think this is a huge insecurity with him, but felt a little flat.He decides that the only way to protect her not only from other men and his paranoid uncle is to marry her and he does so without her knowledge. Not only will this protect her, but he'll never have to marry again and his uncle will leave him alone. He feels honor bound to get her back to her home and this sets off the chain of events for the rest of their time together.I liked that several issues with time traveling were brought up. Melanie wonders is she could give up her family, her job, health concerns for a man in the past. She constantly struggles with leaving behind everything she's known and the safety of her baby to a land so foreign to her. When she meets a woman who was also transported back into time and also had the same struggles, Melanie is able to rationally think about what she could lose and what she could gain.You also get a sense that Darcy really is Scottish. From the "kents, canna, willna, ye, etc." from all the characters you can place them in their time. Those terms are used so often it took me a while to get used to it. All the variations of kent, ken also took a few moments of pause.In terms of the villains there were maybe 1 and a half villains. They are both coming from different fronts - we have Steafen who is this paranoid man who is willing to do anything for his keep to the point of imprisoning strangers for the night rather than give customary hospitality. I was a little confused with him - he was doing what he thought was right, but to an extremity. He's willing to banish and hunt down his heir apparent because of what his witchy wife must be able to do. But on the other hand, he lives his wife dearly and is ok with the fact that she may never bear any children.But then we have the true villain Anya who starts the whole ordeal with "Big Darcy". Having their POVs, you understand where they are coming from and know more than the characters do.I also thought the character of Timothy was inventive. I wasn't expected that aspect and definitely wasn't expecting the scene the car. I thought Darcy thinking the R shift meant Retreat was adorable and hilarious. I'm not sure if this is the start of a series, but the tinker and his crew can definitely be more developed in the future with other people time traveling. And we're also led to believe that many people have been transported back into the past and many more will probably do so.