True to the Highlander (The Novels of Loch Moigh) by Barbara Longley
Hey guys. It's been so long. Now, I have to say, originally, this was going to be a bookwin! And then I wrote my review... But first, let's get the synopsis out of the way huh? I copied and pasted from Amazon for a reason.
"Treachery rules the Highlands of 1423. With their king captured by the English, Scottish nobles plot to ransom James behind the back of the brutal regent holding their land in his iron grip. But not every clan wishes to see King James back on his throne…
Sitting atop this powder keg of bloodthirsty rivalries, Malcolm of clan MacKintosh takes the mysterious, lone maiden he finds along his road as a bad omen…though an undeniably beautiful one. When he attempts to save her from a rogue within his own garrison, she deftly brings Malcolm to his knees. Who is this willful lass who has so quickly laid siege to his heart?
Alethia Goodsky has met all kinds working at the New York Renaissance Festival, but no one like the fortune-teller who tasks her with a cryptic life-saving mission and flings her into the fifteenth century. Now Alethia must rely on her wits to unravel the mystery in this violent land. Malcolm has sworn to protect her, but her gifts may soon make her his protector. With enemies closing in, Alethia must choose between finding a way home…and remaining true to her Highlander."
Although the synopsis should really read:
"Malcolm of clan MacKintosh takes the mysterious, lone maiden he finds along his road as a bad omen…though an undeniably beautiful one. She deftly brings Malcolm to his knees. Who is this willful lass who has so quickly laid siege to his heart?
Alethia Goodsky has met all kinds working at the New York Renaissance Festival, but no one like the fortune-teller who tasks her with a cryptic life-saving mission and flings her into the fifteenth century. Now Alethia must rely on her wits to unravel the mystery in this violent land. Malcolm has sworn to protect her. Alethia must choose between finding a way home…and remaining true to her Highlander." Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.
Oh boy! Oh boy! Did they get me with this one. I read time travel, woman who had a special "gift" and her having to help protect a man and I was like "Cool". Now I have to say that at first I didn't mind this book. I spent most of my day reading it. And then I started to think about it. It's bad when you realize that you like all the other characters and would rather know their story over the main couple who you are supposed to be rooting for. Where to start?
The book started out okay. Alethia works at a fair and after hearing the fortune-teller cry she goes in to investigate only to find herself transported into the fifteenth century and in Scotland. All she's told by the fortune-teller before going is that she has to rescue someone. I liked the beginning. She's alone and scared because she's in a time that she knows she's not supposed to be in. I thought the author did a pretty good job of writing that. She naturally doesn't trust anyone with the truth and given how she meets the main guy it's understandable. SPOILERS! It goes so far that she ends up marrying the man (tricked into marrying him, but we'll get to that part later), pregnant and still doesn't tell him because she's afraid she'll be burned at the stake for being a witch. She eventually tells him, but it's pretty much in the last half of the second to last chapter. Their reaction isn't bad either. Although the convenience that she had a solar powered laptop charger slightly irked me. I think the time in the novel spanned over 6 months at most.
As I said, Alethia as a character started out alright. You find out early on that she had this gift for reading people. She's essentially a lie detector. She can tell if someone is being truthful or lying. And it appeared as if this ability would come in handy and be something major later on. Only, it's really a plot device and works and doesn't work when the author needs it. Other than to set up one of the men that she meets pretty much immediately as a bad guy, her ability doesn't do much. It's also a little unreliable. At one point she's using her ability to help in a judgement against two people and tells the Laird of the land that both people thought they were telling the truth. Which means she didn't know who was lying and who was telling the truth because they both thought they were in the right. Okay, that's an interesting development. Oh. It's not really relevant to the plot? Okay. And when Malcolm asks her if she used her ability to read him she said she tried but couldn't because his emotions were conflicting or something... WHAT?! It seemed like the author knew someone would ask that question and threw it in there, but I just couldn't buy that. So basically, she'd be great if she was in a movie. Because most people aren't black and white, but grey. I'm sure there are people who we would consider bad who wouldn't consider themselves bad. Would she have a tough time reading them because they think they are in the right? But that doesn't matter. This gift she has really had no baring on the plot. Heck, she didn't even have to use it to figure out that this bad guy was a bad dude. He acted creepy from the second she saw him.
She had so many contradictions to her. It's understandable that she doesn't want to tell them she's from the future. Heck, I wouldn't. I'd have an honest to goodness fear that I'd be tortured or killed in some horrible way for being a witch or something. I got that. But shortly into the novel she reveals to everyone that she's this "truthseer" or something and they are happy and want to use her as such. It's established that they're Christians and religious. So wouldn't that be considered magic or something? The ability to see if someone was lying or telling the truth?
She's also starts out as this "strong independent woman". Within about five minutes of meeting Malcolm he forces her onto his horse and she knocks him out by putting pressure onto the vein on his neck and running away. She has a sharp wit and is constantly butting heads with Malcolm because she's super "independent". But then constantly goes along with what he commands her to do. She goes behind his back, but that's only when he's not around or if others help her. On the one hand I can sort of understand her plight. She's from an era with a different mindset. On the other hand she stayed married to a dude who TRICKED HER INTO MARRYING HIM! Yeah. He tricked her. It goes like this. He finds out she's trying to make a life for herself because she's unsure of what will happen to herself. So she wants to be independent and she starts hunting. So he's pissed because he just can't have her trying to make a life for herself. He'll protect her after all. She relates her fear to him that she doesn't know what's going to happen to her. So he decides to marry her. But get this. Instead of saying "hey. I got this idea. Let's get married. You'll never have to worry about what will happen to you because marrying me will ensure that you'll always belong in my home." No. Instead he calls his cousin over, holds her hands and has her repeat what he says. After that is done she asks what that was all about and THEN he tells her that they just got married. And she's pretty much okay with that. I think she kind of teases him about why he didn't tell her first what his plan was... but. W.T.F.
At some point she gains this ability to have visions. And no one around her cares that she's having visions. Which I'm sure is something she would definitely be burned at the stake for. Turns out that it's probably her daughter, yeah she's pregnant at this point. Some point early on they made this brief mention about a rival clan. She has her vision when a member of said rival clan comes and asks for a truce. Her vision reveals that it's a trap.
She also struggles with the fact that she has family back in her time. Not parents, but extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles who she is apparently close to. So on the one hand she wants to return to them because they are her family. On the other she wants to stay because she loves Malcolm. SPOILERS!! Naturally, she stays. But in the end she doesn't have a choice because Fairy/fortune-teller said so... That is, until I read the short snip for the sequelish novel that's coming out this summer. The fortune-teller is a fairy type creature and can travel in time. But she says due to "rules" she can't send Alethia and Malcolm to Alethia's time. And doesn't even bother saying she can send Alethia back. Not that she'd go back. But in the snip for the next novel, one of Malcolm's cousins gets something for the fairy and she gives him two items that give him the ability to travel into the 21st century and back home. W.T.F! What's sad is that her whole family issues never gets solved, despite her (and essentially the author) bringing it up multiple times. She never gets to say goodbye to them or tell them where she is. Instead, the instant the fairy reveals that they're going to have a bunch of kids and all live to a nice old age she seems to forget about her family.
Kicker? Alethia was never sent to save Malcolm, but a little boy who she had ended up fostering/adopting. Which would have been interesting, had the author not thrown everything she had worked on his character away during those last couple of pages. It's established that he lost his hearing at a young age. So Alethia teaches his sign language. And everyone in the village starts to learn sign language as well to communicate with the boy and Malcolm likes it for tactical reason. There was this nice part where he and this other boy don't like each other, but are forced to work together and Alethia is proud that the boy ends up learning sign language to communicate with her adopted son. Malcolm even wants to teach this ex-rival/new best friend other languages so that the two boys could travel the world together and ex-rival/new best friend would be able to translate for hearing impaired friend. And then Deus Ex Machina fairy appears and goes "Oh you don't like the fact that he can't hear." Blows in his ears and POOF! He can hear again. Yeah, Malcolm asked if they could go to the 21st century because Alethia was pregnant and he knew they had better medicine there and didn't want her to die in child birth. AND also asked if the 21st century medicine would allow his adopted son to hear. It just felt wrong to me because the character had accomplished so much during the novel. They seemed to accept the boy with his disability. And suddenly they want to cure him. It would be one thing if the boy wanted to get his hearing back, but he doesn't mention it. It's Malcolm whom brings it up and the fairy is like "alright". She can heal his hearing, but can't take care of his needs? That's why she sent Alethia. Because the boy would have died if Alethia hadn't been there to bring him up and basically adopt him.
Then there's Malcolm. OH GOD, Malcolm. This guy spends literally the majority of the novel making sure she's "Safe", by pretty much refusing to let her do anything by herself. He insists he'll protect her, but she points out that he can't be with her 24/7. Early on she gets attacked by creepy dude. And instead of letting her get a small knife to keep on her person to protect herself he refuses. And EVERYONE in the book don't agree with his decision. And I mean literally everyone who is talked to in the novel about it including his sister and mother are shocked. In fact, at one point in the novel everyone in his castle/home/village area that he lives in makes a list of the viable candidates to marry Alethia and he's not even on the freaking list because he's doing EVERYTHING wrong. And what does he do maybe an hour after he finds this out? Tricks her into marrying him. She should have gotten a creepster vibe out of him too!
The King James part. Not really relevant. Malcolm's dad deals with that away from the main story. It's only really relevant because when James becomes king he makes this law that the clans have to get along. But you don't even see the character. A messenger comes in and tells them the new law. If they don't then they'll be killed or something like that. And that fuels rival clan to try to fool Malcolm's to going over for this "let's be friends" feast and kill them then pretend that Malcolm and co were bad and have the king I don't know blame the rest of the clan and they'd be forever outcasts or something. And creeper only appears in the beginning to establish that he's creepy and bad. It's mentioned that he may have joined rival clan around the middle. And shows up in the end so that Malcolm can save Alethia after she runs away to try to return home to her time. Considering it's a romance novel and even normal novels many times don't have fleshed out bad guys I shouldn't be that surprised. But it would have been nice to have a more in-depth bad guy. Rival clan were bad because they weren't Malcolm's clan. No one has any idea why they hated each other because it had been literally hundreds of years of rivalry. Which I could see happening. But instead of making them misunderstood or something the author just made them bad. The leader beat his wife to death and beat up his daughter. So clearly he's bad. And creeper dude leered at Alethia and molested her a couple of times and tried to rape her. Why? Because he's a bad guy. The last time he stated it was to get back at Malcolm, but because he was kicked out near the beginning of the novel for molesting her you are given no other reason why he and Malcolm don't like each other. Except that he's creepy.
Almost done I swear. Last short letter to every author out there.
Dear authors EVERYWHERE! It's not cute nor romantic when a boy holds a baby and says "I'm going to marry her." That's just creepy. And for me I find it especially so if said boy is adopted by the parents. Even though they're not related by blood I would still consider them siblings. He would help in the care of raising her! It's creepy! They're siblings!
Non Spoiler Review: I give this book a 1 out of 5 (Can you believe I was originally going to give this 3 stars? It slowly went down the longer my spoiler review got). EDIT: I've finally figured out the quick list of fails.
Do NOT read this book unless you don't mind... Historical inaccuracies. A female protagonist who is a walking contradiction. She may have started out almost three dimensional, only to fall into a hole and emerge a Mary Sue. The "romantic" lead male being a bully and abuser (although not physical definitely mental). Who clearly only wants the protagonist for her body over anything else. Background characters being more interesting than the main characters. Using attempted rape to establish who the "bad guy". Having one dimensional bad guys who end up being used as plot devices to just make the book longer than anything else. Having a hearing impaired character learn and grow into an interesting character only to have all that progress be for nothing in the end. Deus Ex Machina fairy who is also a walking contradiction and ableist. And implied future incest. I don't care if the boy is adopted. He's still their son! It's incest!
"Treachery rules the Highlands of 1423. With their king captured by the English, Scottish nobles plot to ransom James behind the back of the brutal regent holding their land in his iron grip. But not every clan wishes to see King James back on his throne…
Sitting atop this powder keg of bloodthirsty rivalries, Malcolm of clan MacKintosh takes the mysterious, lone maiden he finds along his road as a bad omen…though an undeniably beautiful one. When he attempts to save her from a rogue within his own garrison, she deftly brings Malcolm to his knees. Who is this willful lass who has so quickly laid siege to his heart?
Alethia Goodsky has met all kinds working at the New York Renaissance Festival, but no one like the fortune-teller who tasks her with a cryptic life-saving mission and flings her into the fifteenth century. Now Alethia must rely on her wits to unravel the mystery in this violent land. Malcolm has sworn to protect her, but her gifts may soon make her his protector. With enemies closing in, Alethia must choose between finding a way home…and remaining true to her Highlander."
Although the synopsis should really read:
"Malcolm of clan MacKintosh takes the mysterious, lone maiden he finds along his road as a bad omen…though an undeniably beautiful one. She deftly brings Malcolm to his knees. Who is this willful lass who has so quickly laid siege to his heart?
Alethia Goodsky has met all kinds working at the New York Renaissance Festival, but no one like the fortune-teller who tasks her with a cryptic life-saving mission and flings her into the fifteenth century. Now Alethia must rely on her wits to unravel the mystery in this violent land. Malcolm has sworn to protect her. Alethia must choose between finding a way home…and remaining true to her Highlander." Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.
Oh boy! Oh boy! Did they get me with this one. I read time travel, woman who had a special "gift" and her having to help protect a man and I was like "Cool". Now I have to say that at first I didn't mind this book. I spent most of my day reading it. And then I started to think about it. It's bad when you realize that you like all the other characters and would rather know their story over the main couple who you are supposed to be rooting for. Where to start?
The book started out okay. Alethia works at a fair and after hearing the fortune-teller cry she goes in to investigate only to find herself transported into the fifteenth century and in Scotland. All she's told by the fortune-teller before going is that she has to rescue someone. I liked the beginning. She's alone and scared because she's in a time that she knows she's not supposed to be in. I thought the author did a pretty good job of writing that. She naturally doesn't trust anyone with the truth and given how she meets the main guy it's understandable. SPOILERS! It goes so far that she ends up marrying the man (tricked into marrying him, but we'll get to that part later), pregnant and still doesn't tell him because she's afraid she'll be burned at the stake for being a witch. She eventually tells him, but it's pretty much in the last half of the second to last chapter. Their reaction isn't bad either. Although the convenience that she had a solar powered laptop charger slightly irked me. I think the time in the novel spanned over 6 months at most.
As I said, Alethia as a character started out alright. You find out early on that she had this gift for reading people. She's essentially a lie detector. She can tell if someone is being truthful or lying. And it appeared as if this ability would come in handy and be something major later on. Only, it's really a plot device and works and doesn't work when the author needs it. Other than to set up one of the men that she meets pretty much immediately as a bad guy, her ability doesn't do much. It's also a little unreliable. At one point she's using her ability to help in a judgement against two people and tells the Laird of the land that both people thought they were telling the truth. Which means she didn't know who was lying and who was telling the truth because they both thought they were in the right. Okay, that's an interesting development. Oh. It's not really relevant to the plot? Okay. And when Malcolm asks her if she used her ability to read him she said she tried but couldn't because his emotions were conflicting or something... WHAT?! It seemed like the author knew someone would ask that question and threw it in there, but I just couldn't buy that. So basically, she'd be great if she was in a movie. Because most people aren't black and white, but grey. I'm sure there are people who we would consider bad who wouldn't consider themselves bad. Would she have a tough time reading them because they think they are in the right? But that doesn't matter. This gift she has really had no baring on the plot. Heck, she didn't even have to use it to figure out that this bad guy was a bad dude. He acted creepy from the second she saw him.
She had so many contradictions to her. It's understandable that she doesn't want to tell them she's from the future. Heck, I wouldn't. I'd have an honest to goodness fear that I'd be tortured or killed in some horrible way for being a witch or something. I got that. But shortly into the novel she reveals to everyone that she's this "truthseer" or something and they are happy and want to use her as such. It's established that they're Christians and religious. So wouldn't that be considered magic or something? The ability to see if someone was lying or telling the truth?
She's also starts out as this "strong independent woman". Within about five minutes of meeting Malcolm he forces her onto his horse and she knocks him out by putting pressure onto the vein on his neck and running away. She has a sharp wit and is constantly butting heads with Malcolm because she's super "independent". But then constantly goes along with what he commands her to do. She goes behind his back, but that's only when he's not around or if others help her. On the one hand I can sort of understand her plight. She's from an era with a different mindset. On the other hand she stayed married to a dude who TRICKED HER INTO MARRYING HIM! Yeah. He tricked her. It goes like this. He finds out she's trying to make a life for herself because she's unsure of what will happen to herself. So she wants to be independent and she starts hunting. So he's pissed because he just can't have her trying to make a life for herself. He'll protect her after all. She relates her fear to him that she doesn't know what's going to happen to her. So he decides to marry her. But get this. Instead of saying "hey. I got this idea. Let's get married. You'll never have to worry about what will happen to you because marrying me will ensure that you'll always belong in my home." No. Instead he calls his cousin over, holds her hands and has her repeat what he says. After that is done she asks what that was all about and THEN he tells her that they just got married. And she's pretty much okay with that. I think she kind of teases him about why he didn't tell her first what his plan was... but. W.T.F.
At some point she gains this ability to have visions. And no one around her cares that she's having visions. Which I'm sure is something she would definitely be burned at the stake for. Turns out that it's probably her daughter, yeah she's pregnant at this point. Some point early on they made this brief mention about a rival clan. She has her vision when a member of said rival clan comes and asks for a truce. Her vision reveals that it's a trap.
She also struggles with the fact that she has family back in her time. Not parents, but extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles who she is apparently close to. So on the one hand she wants to return to them because they are her family. On the other she wants to stay because she loves Malcolm. SPOILERS!! Naturally, she stays. But in the end she doesn't have a choice because Fairy/fortune-teller said so... That is, until I read the short snip for the sequelish novel that's coming out this summer. The fortune-teller is a fairy type creature and can travel in time. But she says due to "rules" she can't send Alethia and Malcolm to Alethia's time. And doesn't even bother saying she can send Alethia back. Not that she'd go back. But in the snip for the next novel, one of Malcolm's cousins gets something for the fairy and she gives him two items that give him the ability to travel into the 21st century and back home. W.T.F! What's sad is that her whole family issues never gets solved, despite her (and essentially the author) bringing it up multiple times. She never gets to say goodbye to them or tell them where she is. Instead, the instant the fairy reveals that they're going to have a bunch of kids and all live to a nice old age she seems to forget about her family.
Kicker? Alethia was never sent to save Malcolm, but a little boy who she had ended up fostering/adopting. Which would have been interesting, had the author not thrown everything she had worked on his character away during those last couple of pages. It's established that he lost his hearing at a young age. So Alethia teaches his sign language. And everyone in the village starts to learn sign language as well to communicate with the boy and Malcolm likes it for tactical reason. There was this nice part where he and this other boy don't like each other, but are forced to work together and Alethia is proud that the boy ends up learning sign language to communicate with her adopted son. Malcolm even wants to teach this ex-rival/new best friend other languages so that the two boys could travel the world together and ex-rival/new best friend would be able to translate for hearing impaired friend. And then Deus Ex Machina fairy appears and goes "Oh you don't like the fact that he can't hear." Blows in his ears and POOF! He can hear again. Yeah, Malcolm asked if they could go to the 21st century because Alethia was pregnant and he knew they had better medicine there and didn't want her to die in child birth. AND also asked if the 21st century medicine would allow his adopted son to hear. It just felt wrong to me because the character had accomplished so much during the novel. They seemed to accept the boy with his disability. And suddenly they want to cure him. It would be one thing if the boy wanted to get his hearing back, but he doesn't mention it. It's Malcolm whom brings it up and the fairy is like "alright". She can heal his hearing, but can't take care of his needs? That's why she sent Alethia. Because the boy would have died if Alethia hadn't been there to bring him up and basically adopt him.
Then there's Malcolm. OH GOD, Malcolm. This guy spends literally the majority of the novel making sure she's "Safe", by pretty much refusing to let her do anything by herself. He insists he'll protect her, but she points out that he can't be with her 24/7. Early on she gets attacked by creepy dude. And instead of letting her get a small knife to keep on her person to protect herself he refuses. And EVERYONE in the book don't agree with his decision. And I mean literally everyone who is talked to in the novel about it including his sister and mother are shocked. In fact, at one point in the novel everyone in his castle/home/village area that he lives in makes a list of the viable candidates to marry Alethia and he's not even on the freaking list because he's doing EVERYTHING wrong. And what does he do maybe an hour after he finds this out? Tricks her into marrying him. She should have gotten a creepster vibe out of him too!
The King James part. Not really relevant. Malcolm's dad deals with that away from the main story. It's only really relevant because when James becomes king he makes this law that the clans have to get along. But you don't even see the character. A messenger comes in and tells them the new law. If they don't then they'll be killed or something like that. And that fuels rival clan to try to fool Malcolm's to going over for this "let's be friends" feast and kill them then pretend that Malcolm and co were bad and have the king I don't know blame the rest of the clan and they'd be forever outcasts or something. And creeper only appears in the beginning to establish that he's creepy and bad. It's mentioned that he may have joined rival clan around the middle. And shows up in the end so that Malcolm can save Alethia after she runs away to try to return home to her time. Considering it's a romance novel and even normal novels many times don't have fleshed out bad guys I shouldn't be that surprised. But it would have been nice to have a more in-depth bad guy. Rival clan were bad because they weren't Malcolm's clan. No one has any idea why they hated each other because it had been literally hundreds of years of rivalry. Which I could see happening. But instead of making them misunderstood or something the author just made them bad. The leader beat his wife to death and beat up his daughter. So clearly he's bad. And creeper dude leered at Alethia and molested her a couple of times and tried to rape her. Why? Because he's a bad guy. The last time he stated it was to get back at Malcolm, but because he was kicked out near the beginning of the novel for molesting her you are given no other reason why he and Malcolm don't like each other. Except that he's creepy.
Almost done I swear. Last short letter to every author out there.
Dear authors EVERYWHERE! It's not cute nor romantic when a boy holds a baby and says "I'm going to marry her." That's just creepy. And for me I find it especially so if said boy is adopted by the parents. Even though they're not related by blood I would still consider them siblings. He would help in the care of raising her! It's creepy! They're siblings!
Non Spoiler Review: I give this book a 1 out of 5 (Can you believe I was originally going to give this 3 stars? It slowly went down the longer my spoiler review got). EDIT: I've finally figured out the quick list of fails.
Do NOT read this book unless you don't mind... Historical inaccuracies. A female protagonist who is a walking contradiction. She may have started out almost three dimensional, only to fall into a hole and emerge a Mary Sue. The "romantic" lead male being a bully and abuser (although not physical definitely mental). Who clearly only wants the protagonist for her body over anything else. Background characters being more interesting than the main characters. Using attempted rape to establish who the "bad guy". Having one dimensional bad guys who end up being used as plot devices to just make the book longer than anything else. Having a hearing impaired character learn and grow into an interesting character only to have all that progress be for nothing in the end. Deus Ex Machina fairy who is also a walking contradiction and ableist. And implied future incest. I don't care if the boy is adopted. He's still their son! It's incest!