Series: Highland Heroes, #4
Tropes & Traits: widowed hero & heroine; forced into marriage
Genre/Setting: Historical; Scotland; 1701
Publication Date: 08.25.20
Heat Level: 3/5
Rating: 4/5
After the tragic loss of both the women he’s ever loved or even cared for, Ian Cameron believes himself cursed and has no interest in opening himself up to that pain again. But his family has other ideas, fully intending to see him wed to a lively widow and taking charge of her three rambunctious sons. Though he considers Gretna a dear friend, Ian has no intention of driving into a marriage with her.
Gretna Neal is content with her independence and having survived two husbands already, she has no intention of going through marriage again, especially after the horror of her second husband. But now her meddlesome friends have put her in a tenuous situation and the only way to protect herself and thus her sons from vicious gossip is a year-long handfast with Ian Cameron. But soon her feelings for Ian are more than friendly and he finds himself wondering if happiness might be in store for him after all, but grudge-holding figures from the past will do anything to stand in their way.
I have been looking forward to a happy ending for poor, tragic Ian for some time now and I’m glad to see he finally got it. I felt like he and Gretna were an odd pairing, but with their shared pain of lost love they wound up having a lot in common and making sense together. The flow here was rather odd though. I had expected most of the book to be Ian and Gretna resisting matchmakers, I would’ve been furious at the utter betrayal they perpetrated, even though they had good intentions. Instead, Ian and Gretna wound up together fairly quickly and the rest of the story was almost nonstop action as things continued to go wrong for them. At times there was almost too much going on and the story felt a bit discombobulated. I loved seeing the strong, warrior side of Ian again after his broken emptiness of previous books. Gretna did annoy me a bit with her willful stubbornness and at times poor decision making, and all for the sake of claiming her independence and going against what she was asked to do. Nonetheless, I did enjoy Ian’s hard-won happy ending and I look forward to reading the stories of the other MacCoinnichs.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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