readerbug2's review
3.0
For Willingham's highest rated Harlequin, I was left wanting. For a tale of trauma and loss and love, the resolution of everything was too simple and neat, but all of that could've been ignored if the leads were captivating. I could ignore the too neatly tied up ending where everything worked out oh so perfectly with a hefty dose of deus ex machina if the leads had good chemistry and if their banter moved the story along. Alas, they didn't, and I am disappointed.
I place the blame on Nairna, the heroine. For a woman who's been married twice and one to a man for 4 years, she shouldn't be as naive as she is, and yet, she acts as if she's never stepped outside before. Nairna has no idea how to please a man or even what he wants when she was married for four years. Granted, it was loveless, and he didn't care about her needs. Still, that doesn't explain the complete lack of knowledge on her part of how sex works. She was basically an ingenue, and it was really frustrating reading about such a clueless heroine.
The worst of Nairna's offenses was her complete ignorance about the political landscape surrounding her. Somehow, she was completely unaware of how ruthless the English could be towards the captive Scottish. Did her second husband's clan live under a rock? From their extortion of her father, she knows they're greedy, but not once does she consider that the English could also be dangerous until she almost gets the youngest brother of her husband killed. She's not naive; she's delusional, and somehow, the rest of the clan just goes along with whatever she wants, as if she was some sort of wise man. If she was a little more self-aware, she would've realized how her actions almost obliterated the entire clan except for some major deus ex machina.
What should've been a sweet and touching story of love and redemption turned into one woman's pity party about how she couldn't have kids and how she almost, single-handedly, made the Scottish people extinct.
I place the blame on Nairna, the heroine. For a woman who's been married twice and one to a man for 4 years, she shouldn't be as naive as she is, and yet, she acts as if she's never stepped outside before. Nairna has no idea how to please a man or even what he wants when she was married for four years. Granted, it was loveless, and he didn't care about her needs. Still, that doesn't explain the complete lack of knowledge on her part of how sex works. She was basically an ingenue, and it was really frustrating reading about such a clueless heroine.
The worst of Nairna's offenses was her complete ignorance about the political landscape surrounding her. Somehow, she was completely unaware of how ruthless the English could be towards the captive Scottish. Did her second husband's clan live under a rock? From their extortion of her father, she knows they're greedy, but not once does she consider that the English could also be dangerous until she almost gets the youngest brother of her husband killed. She's not naive; she's delusional, and somehow, the rest of the clan just goes along with whatever she wants, as if she was some sort of wise man. If she was a little more self-aware, she would've realized how her actions almost obliterated the entire clan except for some major deus ex machina.
What should've been a sweet and touching story of love and redemption turned into one woman's pity party about how she couldn't have kids and how she almost, single-handedly, made the Scottish people extinct.
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