A Highlander for Christmas
by Sandy Blair
Sandy Blair is the author of the "___ in a Kilt" ( Man in a Kilt, Rogue in a Kilt, Thief in a Kilt) Scottish time-travel/historical romance novels. This is her newest. It's a bit of a departure in that her first book (Man) was a STT back to medieval times. The other two (Rogue, Thief) were set in the same medieval time period with some overlapping characters and some paranormal elements but no time-travel. This new book is another time-travel and a standalone, and has the male MC (Sir Cameron MacLeod) as an eighteenth-century Jacobite ensorcelled into a puzzle box by his mother near Christmas of 1745 - to protect him from the coming battle - and released into the 21-st century when an antiques dealer opens it.
I was in B&N with a $25 gift card from my brother (thanks Jon!) - a belated birthday present. I saw this and since I had found her previous books decent and because it had the guy coming forward (wanted to get her take on it) and because the female MC's name was Claire MacGregor (heh) I picked it up.
My verdict: eh. Like her other books, tolerable, but not outstanding. She's no Diana. To be fair, I've read much worse in the STTR niche (Janet Chapman's books come to mind) but I've also read better. And though I know the proof will be in the pudding, it also made me think "If this can get published, mine sure as heck ought to be!" I wasn't keen on the way she wrote his dialect, I wasn't very emotionally involved with the characters (a sure sign is when I start skimming the sex scenes) and I thought Cam's reactions and analogies to things in the modern world weren't true to the culture of his time and felt forced for laughs or nervous tension. I just kept thinking to myself that Alec would go about things a little more intelligently.
So sure, pick it up and read it if you're looking for a decent STTR to hold you over until Book 7 (and OHN, of course! *g*). But if it tells you anything, as soon as I finished it I listed it on my PaperBackSwap.com account.
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