I’m going to try my hardest to avoid spoilers, but I will talk vaguely about the whole book.

I have to admit, I thought this was an adult novel—not that I was expecting erotica, but doing the math and realizing the FMC was 17 at the beginning felt like whiplash. 😅 I kept wondering if I should just close the book to avoid any weirdness. Luckily, it doesn’t get weird. It’s apparently a part of a YA Romance series, and I would actually argue it’s a great, soft, butterflies-in-your-stomach type of romance. I think it would be great for older teens.

In the beginning, I felt like the characters and dialogue between them was so fun. That might have actually worked against the novel, because once the real plot gets going it feels like that and the uniqueness of our characters fell off. I also felt like our FMC has so many interesting skills from the place she had grown up, they really could have been utilized better in the latter half. It ended up feeling very damsel-in-distress despite how hard I could tell the author wanted to ensure agency for her.

There is one part that would be a major spoiler to put in here, but maybe others will know what I’m talking about: The book is written in third person, multiple POV, and there’s a small segment that felt completely unnecessary (not in a flagrant way but a useless way). I could not get this segment out of my head during the climax—the two just completely contradict each other??? Was the former segment forgotten about???

I’m also a bad person so I’m just going to throw out there that it feels like someone who writes particularly about Scottish clan politics/romance… doesn’t understand Scottish clans. Most of the plot is based on a clan being Highlanders when they’re… not? They’re literally a coastal clan. I think the author mixed up one character’s marital clan with her maiden clan (the one she would have been a part of prior to her marriage… if she would have sworn fealty to her husband’s clan at all, I guess). There’s also a very large assumption made that A) a laird = a clan chief, and B) all of a laird’s people/citizens would automatically be part of his clan. But hey, what do I know. 🤷🏻‍♀️