Review: A Highlander Walks into a Bar by Laura Trentham
SYNOPSIS:
The timeless romance, soaring passion—and gorgeous men—of Scotland comes to modern-day America. And the rules of love will never be the same…
Isabel Buchanan is fiery, funny, and never at a loss for words. But she is struck speechless when her mother returns from a trip to Scotland with a six-foot-tall, very handsome souvenir. Izzy’s mother is so infatuated by the fellow that Izzy has to plan their annual Highland Games all by herself. Well, not completely by herself. The Highlander’s strapping young nephew has come looking for his uncle…
Alasdair Blackmoor has never seen a place as friendly as this small Georgia town—or a girl as brilliant and beguiling as Izzy. Instead of saving his uncle, who seems to be having a lovely time, Alasdair decides he’d rather help Izzy with the Highland Games. Show her how to dance like a Highlander. Drink like a Highlander. And maybe, just maybe, fall in love with a Highlander. But when the games are over, where do they go from here?
REVIEW:
*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*
To say this book was disappointing would be an understatement. I had high hopes going in from a cute cover to a sweet synopsis, I was excited to finally start this story. Only my excitement rapidly dwindled over the course of the novel, so much so that when I got to the end of the story, I was happy it was finally over.
So first off, I have to nit-pick the cover, which the colors are not the Blackmoor tartan which are mentioned numerous times throughout the story as green and gray. Now normally this wouldn’t bother me but considering the entire story is about two Scots in America for a Highlands festival, yeah I am going to complain.
In terms of characters, the Isabel described in the synopsis and the one in the book are two completely different people. Isabel has extreme mood swings, to the point where I wondered if she was bipolar. She would be seething and glaring one moment and then reminiscing about her father the next paragraph. There was no fluidity to her character, she was fickle and unrelate-able. She is portrayed as accident proned but instead of being charming and silly, it is cringey and uncomfortable.
Alasdair, is good looking, but the romance doesn’t really expand beyond a general attraction to each other. There is no depth to Isabel and Alasdair’s interactions and everything happens so fast that you are left wondering how we went from animosity to steamy sex. The plot itself had so much potential, but the execution of the story was sloppy and disconnected.
The book was missing that special magic that sucks you in. I was never transported to Highland; instead of immersing myself in a new world, I read the whole story as an outsider. I think this was a combination of the writing style not being for me but also the synopsis was just so vastly different from the story I read, leaving me one disappointed reader.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
