6 Followers
9 Following
annaerishkigal

Anna Erishkigal's blog

"I put my heroes through hell..."

Too much chatter, too many plot holes

Highland Fire - Hannah Howell

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Generally I like a good historical romance and some of the worldbuilding was excellent, but after a while I kept finding myself annoyed.

The way the characters kept talking back and forth, talk talk talk talk, aggravated the heck out of me. More action, less talk next time please? The use of Scottish dialect seemed realistic to me (who speaks maybe 6 words of Gaelic in real life), but at some point it felt like I was trapped in a nonstop writing exercise instead of an actual book that had a plot.

After the first time when (view spoiler), you'd think they'd be smart enough not to do the same thing again. But no...

The heroine's worry about her 'gift' was realistic at first, but then it went on and on and on (and on and on and on and on and on...).

And the confrontation by Jeanine in the cow barn, and she didn't blurt that little tidbit out? Nope. Not buying it. Someone like her, that would have been the first words out of her mouth.

Mungan? With Una? Nope. Just ... nope. That whole 'ransom' subplot could have been handled w-a-y better.

And they'd bring their women into battle? In that time period? No way. Uh-uh. Didn't buy it. Couldn't believe it.

It wasn't a bad book. It was cleanly edited, but there were multiple things that kept knocking me out of the story. I hate to leave a not-so great review, but I didn't leave this book with a warm fuzzy feeling like I expect from a romance novel, and truth be told, by the big 'I love you' at the end I was pretty much skimming. Sorry :-(