Michele Sinclair

The Highlander’s Bride
By Michele Sinclair
The McTiernays Book #1

This book started out great with the McTiernay brothers traveling through the Lowlands after attending their other brother’s wedding. They are traveling to the Highlands to their home when they find Laurel Cordell, an English woman, who had been beaten and had escaped from the clutches of one of the McTiernay’s enemies, Keith Douglas. Keith had stolen her and tried to force her to marry him but she killed him…she thinks…and escaped.

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The brothers had just told a story about the Laird of the MacInnes clan had his granddaughter coming to visit from England; how his daughter had married an English man and how beautiful the daughter was supposed to be. And up pops Laurel but nobody connects her with the story. Laurel did not tell the brothers who she really was. She just let them believe she was English because, apparently, Keith and his father threatened to do harm to her grandfather. I wasn’t clear exactly on what the threat was or why Laurel thought that if she kept quiet about who she was, how she was protecting her grandfather but she planned on traveling with the McTiernays, staying the winter with them and then in the Spring, traveling back to warn her grandfather about the Douglas threat.

Anyway, Connor McTiernay is a self-professed bachelor because he doesn’t have to marry to make a strong alliance since his clan already was strong and he believes all woman are after is his power. He is instantly attracted to Laurel. Actually, attracted isn’t a strong enough word. I think he was more obsessed like a dog with a bone. He was jealous when anyone talked to her and bossed her around. I found Connor to be a bit boorish and spoiled but I guess men of power were probably like that back then.

The book just stops progressing around 30% through it. Nothing of importance really happens until close to the end. I was bored to tears. I think the author could have cut out two-thirds of the book and still told the story. If she just would have kept the pace up, I would have enjoyed the book more but because I was so bored throughout most of the book, I can’t rate this book very high or recommend it.

… (mais)

I’ve waited a day since completing this book because it left me thoroughly confused about how I felt about it. I’m still confused. I think this story tried to be three or four books smushed into one. There were too many characters with too much going on – and well – it just seems disjointed to me. I thought I was going to get an exciting Highlander and his lass coming to find their HEA while investigating and saving the life of her sister’s husband. I envisioned exciting, tense, gripping battles and chases with lovely romantic interludes intertwined. What I got was a very exciting beginning that rapidly slowed down to a crawl. If you add all of the page time together, you’ll probably find that the characters from the previous books take up much more time than our current pair. Then, there were so many pages of descriptions of who was who that I began to get them all mixed up and I’ve read the previous books. All of that said, I actually liked Brodie and Shinae, and would have loved to have more of their story in detail rather than just glossed over quickly. I had liked Shinae’s sister in her book, but not this one. They hadn’t seen each other in five years and she made no effort to hurry to get to the castle to see Shinae – and when she did arrive, it was just “Hi, how are you?”.

The first page in the Prologue starts out so very exciting! If that had continued throughout the book, I would have given it 10-stars. The English are going from abbey to abbey in Scotland and burning them to the ground. When they arrive at the abbey where Shinae is a knife-carrying, dissatisfied nun, Shinae decides to do whatever she can to buy her fellow nuns the time they need to escape. She singlehandedly takes on and defeats five English warriors before escaping herself. Just as she is defeating the last of the warriors, a man appears in the doorway and she’s not sure she can take on another soldier. Luckily, he is there to help. When he learns she’s related by marriage to the McTiernays, he asks her to take on a mission for King Robert. Since that mission involves saving her sister’s husband, she doesn’t hesitate to accept.

Chapter One begins with Shinae and an uninvited companion, Isilme, having trekked (on foot) toward Lochlen Castle where ALL of the McTiernay’s will be gathering for celebrations. Though it is summer, the rain and wind are freezing them. They are almost to the castle when they just can’t trudge further. If they don’t find shelter, they’ll be dead from the chill by morning. Luckily for Shinae, she’s found and rescued and manages to ask her rescuer to look for her companion. So, Brodie rescues Shinae and his friend, Dunlop, went to rescue Isilme. Thus, our two romances are set up.

Then, all of the myriad legs of the story branch out and ultimately leave you scratching your head in confusion. Well, not totally, I could certainly follow it, but goodness I shouldn’t have had to work to do so. So much of it was totally superfluous and disjointed.

So, I liked Brodie and Shinae and their story. I liked Dunlop and Isilme and their story. The McTiernay’s portion of the mystery was okay, but – the entire solution was about 2 pages and the rest was chaff. Then, there was the Mahon thing – I guess it was there for a red herring, but it just added another layer of superfluous nonsense as far as I was concerned. IF we had broken this down into more than one book OR put more of the feature on the romances and much less on all of the McTiernay stuff, it would have been a much more enjoyable read. Yes, I understand this is part of the McTiernay series, but – they could have made cameo appearances and taken on a supporting role rather than the starring role.

I wouldn’t read this book a second time, but I am pleased to have met Brodie, Shinae, Dunlop, and Isilme. I loved that Brodie wasn’t a Laird and wasn’t becoming one. I liked that he was floundering with finding his place within the clan and I loved that Shinae was proud of him and supportive of him no matter what he chose to do. It was nice to see the ‘common’ folk get their HEA.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.… (mais)

I reviewed this book for an award about a year ago and I gave it very high marks. Jumping into the series on book three did not hurt one bit, it only made me want to read the first two as soon as I could get my hands on them. The characters were very easy to like and the story was a fun one to follow. I'm a fan of women that aren't easily caught and men that swallow their pride to go after what they truly want. I love that just when I thought the story was drawing to a close, it went deeper and the main character got to avenge his demons. I have not found the other books in the series at any local stores or in nearby libraries. I may just have to order them now that my memory has been refreshed on what a wonderful author Ms. Sinclair is and how much I've missed the McTiernay brothers.… (mais)