A Scandalous Scot

A Scandalous Scot by Karen Ranney R

Jean MacDonald has taken refuge at Ballindair Castle in the Highlands of Scotland, working as a maid, after a scandal in Inverness rocked her world and changed her life. When not trying to keep her beautiful sister, Catriona, from getting into trouble she wanders the halls searching for one of the many ghosts of Ballindair. Morgan MacCraig, retreats to his family estate after his own scandal leaves him the laughingstock of London. He hopes to live up to his father's reputation as a hero of Scotland by managing his own estate and slowly winning back the regard of his countrymen. His friend Andrew, a married womanizer, accompanies him and while Andrew sets his sights on winning Catriona, Morgan is far more intrigued by the ghost hunting beauty who wanders his halls and isn't scared to speak her mind in front of him. He finds himself looking forward to their encounters while she is out ghost hunting as the two of them talk about family ghosts and skirt around the issues hidden in their pasts. Morgan is haunted by the flagrant way his wife cheated on him with almost everyone in the ton and finds that Jean makes him forget what happened.

Jean sees the way Morgan tries so hard to live up to everyone's expectations and wishes there was some way to show him that he is already a man worthy of other's respect. As things get more interesting between Jean and Morgan, Catriona is trying to find a way to turn her beauty into something more. When she reveals her plan to become Morgan's mistress, Jean attempts to enlists Andrew's help and everything ends up backfiring when it is Jean caught in Morgan's room. Deciding that now is the time to show how honorable he is Morgan agrees to marry Jean, even while Jean is terrified that their marriage is a sham since she is still hiding to avoid her own scandal. She attempts to avoid the marriage, but there is no getting around Morgan's determination and her own secret desire for him. Catriona is bitter that Jean has outmaneuvered her and decides her best bet is to become Andrew's mistress and Jean feels she has to protect herself. She knows that she risks Morgan discovering everything she has been trying so hard to hide, but she doesn't know that Morgan recognizes how vital she has becoming in his life and will let nothing stand in the way of their happiness.

Jean was a rather bland heroine in my opinion; although she had interests in many different subjects I never really felt like she was truly passionate about anything, including Morgan. She didn't get excited or angry about anything really, just handled everything as it came and it annoyed me and made her seem incredibly unrealistic. She was anxious about her past, which certainly set up the conflict of the story, but her background turned out to be rather ho hum in my opinion as it had been blown out of proportion. Morgan's tortured background was far more interesting to me as he strived to live up the unrealistic (and unreal) expectations he had for himself and dealt with the issues surrounding his divorce. I enjoyed reading about his coming to grips with what his wife did to him and with the truth about his father as he came to the realization that he was his own man and just as worthy of respect as anyone. Perhaps that was the best part of their relationship as Jean helped him to this understanding through her support. Unfortunately the rest of their relationship was pretty boring and, while I liked that there was not a lot of arguing between them, I would have appreciated some excitement!

Jean and Morgan did not spend enough time together in my opinion, and the time they did seemed to be taken up by unimportant things, like the ghost hunting. They skirted around important issues and I don't see how they were able to fall in love. There was very little sex between them and it was at best, lukewarm and contributed absolutely nothing to the romance between the characters. Surprisingly enough I found the little plot involving Catriona to be more interesting than anything surrounding Jean. Catriona was a wonderfully written pretty, spoiled, and absolutely detestable person who you rooted against, but couldn't help wanting to read more about. She was perfectly mercenary and detestable, but I understood her motives, advancement and money, far more than Jean's far too polite and perfect desires. I felt like ghost aspect of the story was completely ridiculous and I did not really see what purpose it served other than to pop up at annoying instances and distract from anything important really happening.

Rating: A fast read, but rather boring, with a boring heroine and a character whose interesting past and development was overshadowed by a lukewarm romance.

Scottish Brides

Scottish Brides 719

Under the Kilt by Christina Dodd

Hadden Fairchild's drive to document the oral history and excentricities of Scotland takes him to the clan MacNachtan where he meets and falls in love with their "leader" Andra. But Andra does not trust men after she has been abandoned by all of them in her life and she forces him to leave. Neither can get the other out of their head and Hadden comes back determined to win her and discover the secrets of the MacNachtan marriage kilt. When the servants take it into their heads to meddle and the two are locked in the attic with the marriage plaid and plenty of fertility figurines to help them work through their problems.

This was quite a short story where a lot of the getting to know you obviously took place before the story really began. I really did miss a lot of that, but the story did get to at least a few meaty issues such as her problem with letting go of responsibility and her issues with men. While the story ended up with a few more issues to be resolved, it worked fairly well. The sex was incredibly hot, like wow, for such a short story, but I did not like that there was a completely random out of the blue reunion between her characters from other stories.

Rose in Bloom by Stephanie Laurens

Duncan, Earl of Strathyre, has known Rose Mackenzie-Craddock her whole life and she has been quite the thorn in his side. When he heads back to his childhood home to introduce the woman who may become his fiance, he runs into Rose and discovers that she continues to push his buttons, but in a completely different way. Rose is also contemplating an engagement to another man, but neither Rose nor Duncan can resist the other. They begin a game of teasing that keeps both of them on their toes and it is not long before they both realize they can't marry someone else.

Remarkable what Laurens can do with 100 pages really as she manages to write some really great chemistry between these two. I liked both of these characters immensely and they worked together so amazingly perfectly. A great deal of the story was told from Duncan's point of view and I really liked getting that perspective in a romance. To go along with the chemistry there was a little bit of really good sex, but not enough to overwhelm such a short story. Really this story boiled down to two great characters who were just great together.

Gretna Greene by Julia Quinn

Margaret Pennypacker rushes off to Gretna Greene to save her brother Edward after discovering that he has eloped, but on her way she is waylaid by bandits. Angus Greene saves her as he hates bad guys and upon discovering she has been robbed he takes her to an inn and pretends they are married. The two spend the evening discussing Scottish cuisine, their wayward siblings, and trying to avoid ripping each other's clothes off. When morning finally arrives, they've only known each other one day, but in Gretna anything can happen.

I enjoyed the slightly contrived means by which Quinn got both our characters to Gretna as it gave them some common ground and moving on from "protecting" their siblings lent the

ir rashness some realism. At times I did become irritating with their too-cute banter and it seemed more like arguing than fun, but I still liked how well these characters fit. The sex was kind of thrown in rather willy- nilly in the end, but the story definitely still felt complete.

The Glenlyon Bride by Karen Ranney

Lachlan Sinclair is not at all pleased when the local seer predicts he will marry, and he assumes this woman is Harriet, an English lady. Janet MacPhearson is companion to Harriet and she yearns to go back to Scotland. When Lachlan shows up to scope out Harriet, he finds Janet and assumes she is Harriet. At night the two meet out by the water and it is not long before they know they love each other. But with a legend against them and Harriet using her evil influence, it may take a lot for them to find their way to Glenlyon together.

I really liked the plot of this book with the mistaken identity, but there were instances where I thought it was handled poorly. To me it was obvious that Janet was actually the woman from the legend and I wanted them to wake up and go for it. I thought that Janet and Lachlan were perfect for each other and really meshed well, with a lot of common and a lot of ways the two could help each other. Some brief sex was thrown in almost as an afterthought, but overall the story worked fairly well.

An Unlikely Governess

An Unlikely Governess By Karen Ranney 904

Beatrice Sinclair survived the cholera epidemic that killed her entire family and after a year of base survival she realizes she is in desperate need of a job if she does not want to starve. She turns to Castle Crannoch to ask for help from the Duke of Brechin and meets Devlen Gordon. Devlen is the cousin of the very young Duke and his father is Brechin's guardian who hires Beatrice to be governess to young Robert. She has no experience but she is desperate so she agrees to take on the rude and mannerless child but she hopes that she does not have to spend more time with Devlen, whose physical attractions unnerve her. Devlen hopes that Beatrice can help bring his cousin up the snuff and help protect him from the random incidents that have been happening. He fears that his father, Cameron, the Duke's guardian, is trying to get rid of Robert so that he can inherit the Dukedom as he does not seem concerned at the accidents.

Devlen tries to stay away from Beatrice as her forthright manner, inability to be cowed by titles, and her take charge attitude, attract him but he knows that he cannot touch her. However, after only a short time away he finds himself coming back only to discover that the accidents that could claim Robert's life have continued. He takes Beatrice and Robert and whisks them off to Edinburgh where he wants to keep them safe and where he plan to get much closer to Beatrice. She is nervous but does not see anything wrong with finally acting on her attraction for Devlen and soon the two of them are having a very hard time keeping their hands off each other. She fears that he is far out of his league and while he had never imagined taking a woman as his wife, the more he gets to know her the more he knows that is the only way he can have her in his life. But with someone out to get Robert, there is much that needs to be resolved before the two of them can have their happily ever after.

I would really categorize this as a somewhat gothic novel in plot and writing style as well as the interactions between all the characters and their behaviors. I would not necessarily say the book is a downer but it is very calm and rather cloaked in mystery throughout. The characters are rarely shown really enjoying themselves or joking around or laughing and everything is incredibly serious. Luckily I felt it worked fairly well in this story as Beatrice really was just a very well written and very serious, no nonsense, character. Her life circumstances were horrific and it was realistic that she grieved but had to pick herself up and make her own way in life. I was a little thrown by her ability to handle such an incredibly rude child, especially since she had absolutely no experience with children. As a teacher I can tell you that it is not so easy to just walk in and earn a child's trust and management skills don't just develop overnight.

Devlen was not as complex as Beatrice and I felt like some more time could have been spent getting to really know about him. He wasn't tortured and his dislike for marriage was not based on anything and rather easily blew away when he met the right woman; no crazy fighting tooth and nail to not admit he was in love. I also felt like there should have been a ton more time spent with just the two of them together getting to know each other. The sex was rather sporadic but it was very well written and certainly interesting. Robert was great as the spoiled child and Cameron was incredibly intriguing and I especially liked the little bits of the story that were told from the point of view of Cameron's neglected wife, Rowena. The mystery of what was happening to Robert was a nice little back ground plot that was not at all obvious and wasn't revealed until the very end.

Rating: A really great heroine who could not quite manage to entirely carry an entire story. Good writing with an interesting style, but there were definite issues with the romance.