TEST
Liam MacKenzie, Lord Ravencroft, is a man of action. When we first meet him, he’s pulling the rotting skeleton of a bawdy woman he once knew out of a bog, a woman the local gossip accuses him of murdering. He has, in response to his father’s cruel teachings, become a soldier for the crown and a killer supreme so legendary that people whisper he made a deal with a demon to gain his fearsome skills. He’s returned to Scotland to assume the mantle of laird and try to return justice and order to his clan after years of his father’s misrule.
Philomena “Mena” St. Vincent, Viscountess Benchley, is a woman of great determination. Locked away in an asylum by her libertine husband who claims that she has debauched tastes when in fact he’s the abusive one and has run through her inheritance, she is abused sexually and spiritually day and night by the staff. She is saved from being raped by her doctor by the intervention of the police, alerted by a friend of hers, Countess Blackwell (the heroine of books one of this series, The Highwayman), and is taken in by the Blackwells while she recuperates. Christopher Argent, fiancé of her friend Millie (hero and heroine of book two, The Hunter), is the one to suggest Mena leave the country before her husband discovers she’s been sprung from the snake pit.
This is how our main plots collide. The new Laird MacKenzie needs a governess for his unruly children, so Christopher arranges for Liam to hire Philomena under an assumed identity. Philomena is frightened by the size and might of Liam’s men, and Liam is perplexed by the sense of lust he feels on seeing Philomena, who irritates him with her lack of compliance. He thinks her unqualified. Philomena defies his expectations and manages to relate to and tame both his children – the incongruously-named sourpuss Rihanna and the formal Andrew – and forms a bond with his kinsmen and his servants. Her very presence vexes Liam, and when his caddish brother Thorne shows an interest in her, the brothers’ long-simmering rivalry threatens to reemerge and boil over as they compete for her hand. All the while, the attraction between Liam and Mena simmers. But can their love survive the revelation of her past life? And will Liam ever forgive himself for the death of his wife and allow himself to love again? And what of the body sunk into the moors?
The Highlander is a book that stirs up conflicting emotions for me. Have you ever read a romance novel that feels like it was spliced together from two different ideas into a single super-story? This is a lot like that. We open with the death-by-whipping of a prostitute that occurs in front of the main male character and his brothers; and segue to the heroine being violently dunked in an ice bath while she screams for mercy and gets drooled over by the evil doctors and orderlies at the asylum. Then, thirty pages in, the heroine is suddenly in a Disney movie underpinned with dark carnal urges. The book swings wildly between extremes: bloody-minded gothic passion and plot twists, to Disney-like comedy and warmhearted character building. It reminded me of early Kimberly Cates in a lot of ways, though I know she never had a character nickname one of her heroines “Countess Fire Quim”.
Everything starts out so luridly, so hilariously grotesque that it’s hard to follow its transition to warm family comedy and slow-boiling, tender, passionate romance. It’s the characters, not the plot, that do the saving here. Mena has a core of admirable steel to her, and Liam, while tormented, is the classic beast-with-a-thorn-in-his-paw just waiting for Mena to come pluck it out. Together they begin with a fight-slap-kiss dynamic that becomes a tender retelling of Beauty and the Beast tropes, gradually growing into a sense of mutual tenderness and affection mixed with lust. He respects her fears and the author does not shy away from portraying the heroine’s sensitivity to her past abuse, making their eventual coupling a sweet, rewarding victory. Their relationship is, in fact, why this novel gets a recommendation from me. Most of the characters are excellent and their well-done interaction actually fights against the melodramatic plot, which keeps throwing unnecessary complications in the way. Some examples: we get ghosts in chapter five, murder attempts in chapter eight, and the hero’s fears that the heroine is a pederast interested in his son in chapter eleven. The first and second plot elements dovetail into a does-this-need-to-happen-when-we-already-have-a-villain-out-there? development that makes little sense but at least solves one of the main plot points. It leads to a resolution of the main conflict, but even then, unnecessary plot twists haunt the piece. The native purpleness of the action clashes vibrantly with moments of domestic fluff and the novel goes in two polar directions, yet the characters make everything worth reading and following.
The Highlander isn’t perfect, but the romance between the hero and heroine is worth fighting for, even when the biggest obstacle standing in their way is overwriting.
Grade: B-
Book Type: European Historical Romance|Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 01/08/16
Publication Date: 08/2016
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier
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I am about 90% through The Highlander now (stayed up half the night to read it when it was released at midnight) and so far a B- seems about right for me. Like the other posters mentioned, the beginning started out strong with a very powerful couple of introductory chapters for Mena (who is really introduced in The Hunter) and Liam. Then the rest of the book just coasts along and falls into about three old tropes every chapter. Liam’s whole “I will accuse you of being a whore because you talked to another man and I am jealous” bit really grated on me. And absolutely zero readers will be surprised about the “ghost”, every time “it” showed up I was rolling my eyeballs into my head. Compared to The Hunter, which kept the tension going through the whole book, The Highlander lacked urgency. Mena was supposed to be in terrible danger but spent the majority of the book up in a Scottish version of la la land playing Fraulein Maria with Liam’s two children and teaching Liam how to love which is something I have read hundreds of times before.
I know The Highwayman is a crowd favorite here, but I found The Hunter the most original and compelling of Kerrigan Byrne’s works so far.
I think that was my problem with the book; it wasn’t just that the author chose to lean on tropes, it’s that she couldn’t settle on a single trope!
I want to read this author and will probably start with The Highwayman. Byrne sounds like a very passionate writer with lots of angst based on the reviews here and reader comments.
I loved The Highwayman – definitely give it a try blackjack1!
I can definitely confirm her writing’s gripping!
Lisa – I’m so sorry! I just assumed this was Caz reviewing! SOOOO sorry! Great review!
e. b. wittmann
This was also a B- for me – I loved The Highwayman and The Hunter though I think I’d grad them in that order as well – A, B+, B-. I was happy for Mena to end up with someone who guarded and loved her so fiercely – she deserved that kind of love. And MacKenzie needed someone like Mena to care for – vulnerable but feisty, guarded but searching for the right person to give her affections and trust to. They make a great couple & again, I agree with you Caz – their relationship rescues this story.
I found the darker elements of the story compelling reading – the early scene at the institution is so fully realized I could see it very clearly in my mind. Poor, poor Philomena. On that note, Dorian Blackwell – as the knight in shining armor (though he would hate that characterization) – further solidified his place as one of my most favorite historical ‘tortured heroes.’ (Christopher Argent is pretty great too). I found the life in the highlands a bit too easy breezy compared to the start of the books – but well, I don’t love fairy tale romance as much as I love romances with a bit more angst.
I thought the resolution was a bit too neat (and honestly, it felt a bit rushed). I also expected it to be a lot dirtier – after Argent’s rescue of Millie LeCour at the end of The Hunter & well, all the danger in The Highwayman – it seemed like the penultimate scene with MacKenzie, Blackwell & Argent with Gordon St. Vincent, Viscount Benchley needed a bit more of… I’m not sure what but I thought those scenes lacked a sense of urgency and danger I expect from Ms. Byrne’s books.
I’m curious where she goes next – I very much enjoyed this trilogy. Now that the family is somewhat reunited – I’m guessing we are going to see stories about their offspring? I hope so!
Great review Caz!
Mena and McKenzie’s romance is so utterly lovely, which is definitely what kept me going, and I’ve always believed that if the characters make me root for their happily ever after I’ll immediately auto-rec a book.
I love that we each loved a different aspect of the storytelling; I would’ve been interested in seeing what an entirely darker-toned version of the story would read, I think this would’ve gotten a full-out A for me if the tone was consistent throughout the book (either dark gothic or lighter situation comedy).
And don’t worry! I’m just glad you liked the review!