Overall Response

This book is fine. It’s an average read. That’s not to knock it — it’s like any other book Lynsay Sands writes. A reliable author who may not blow your mind but will always entertain you is worth its weight in gold. I know my money is always well spent. The characters are fun to read about, the murder mystery is engaging, and this book works well to set up the next four in the series with a series of female characters who didn’t blur together. I was especially looking forward to Saidh and Murine’s stories. What did distract me is a few typos–Cam refers to Joan as Annabel later in the book (that’s her aunt) and there’s also a mistake earlier in the book (Cam says the name MacKay before Joan reveals that’s where she’s going). I imagine that only gets noticed once you’ve read a few times.

That being said, it’s a good book. It serves more as the introduction to the series than An English Bride in Scotland as Joan is the niece of Annabel and Ross rather than a contemporary, and the rest of the series takes place with Joan and Cam’s generation.

Spoilers Ahead

I don’t have a lot of specifics here. Joan and Cam are engaging leads, even if Cam appears a bit thoughtless early in the book about Joan’s reputation. He’s hurt she won’t come to Sinclair as….whatever. She knows he doesn’t want to get remarried, and at that point, she’s not really an eligible party for his hand anyway. It never crosses his mind that’s why she’s refusing, which seems like an odd thing for the son of a laird who had already had a pre-arranged marriage.

And I wasn’t entirely wild about Annabel and Ross basically telling Cam and Joan what the other had said which meant they didn’t have to talk to one another and open up. They didn’t need to be vulnerable, and those moments are usually my favorite in a romance.

I did really enjoy the murder mystery, and the culprit was a bit surprising. The clues were definitely there all along which is how the twist works. Once you reread it, you can definitely see it coming which makes it work, too. You’re more actively looking at the murderer to see how you missed it the first time.