Beautiful pictures of Isle of Skye.I think the there is something about the lighting in that part of the world.
★★★½☆ (This is a review of the audiobook.) Hmmm. I don’t know about this one. Several of the people I did a “buddy read” with in the GoodReads Western and Medieval Romance Lovers Group LOVED this highland romance (with several 5★); however, they read it while I listened. I certainly had to get used to Robert McNab’s narration. He did great job on the men. Nevertheless, since he has a deep baritone, he made Christine’s voice a falsetto; this made her sound even younger and more immature than she probably was in the book. (Though the age difference between the hero/heroine is greater than a decade; also, Tor, the hero, has been married before and has children well on their way to adulthood. She has been quite sheltered.) In addition, the love scenes are pretty explicit (the H/h get a little playful, too); I’ve found not just any male can read those scenes to me.
There were things I LOVED (but not as much as this author’s MacLeods of Skye Trilogy) -- and things that made me wrinkle up my nose. Some of the sentences Ms. McCarty writes are wonderful; others are repetitious. A few of the set-ups, and the dialogues that follow, had me going WTH? For example, Christine’s father forces her into to Tor’s bed to cement an alliance (huh?). The father’s reasoning was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome. I know marriage alliances were important, but what about when they were only one-sided? Later, when Christine goes back to rehash with her sister the disaster that took place in his room, this the interchange:
WTH? How is he going to know this when she did agree to slip into his bed, though only to spare her sister. That, and she was too naïve to realize the depth of her father’s deception he was supposed to burst into the solar in time to prevent anything from going too far, not to mention Tor’s desire: he walks around with a hard cock a lot and isn’t ashamed who sees it, LOL! Even if it has virgin’s blood on this impressive apendage. Also, I find it hard to believe that a young girl, who is almost brutally rape earlier that evening, finds lust in her soul when she crawls into bed with him.“I told you what he said. He doesn’t want to marry me.”
Beatrix cupped the side of her face in her hand and gave her an indulgent smile, looking more like a mother than a sister. “He’s angry. Give him time to think. He’ll see that you had nothing to do with our father’s trickery and do what is right.”
Luckily, another carrot is dangled in front of Tor as a marriage inducement; otherwise we might never have our HEA.
Still, maybe I’m being too harsh, because I’m sure I’ll continue with the series. However, I don’t know if it will be on audio. Maybe.
The ChiefThe HawkThe RangerThe ViperThe SaintThe Recruit☚coming out October, 2012
