Released March 31, 2020
Highland Sword
A Royal Highlander Novel
May McGoldrick
St. Martin’s Press, Mar 2020
320 pages
Historical Romance, Scottish historical romance
Pub’s rep via NetGalley
⭐⭐⭐⭐🌙
I like the cover with just a suggestion of rich surroundings and the young couple, supposedly Morrigan and Aidan. Once again, I have a book that loses half a star for the author’s name being in the same large font as the title and up at the top where I feel the title should be. That’s my personal bugaboo. I just feel the title of the book should take precedence over the author’s name on the cover.
However, the story inside is a total winner, as with all May McGoldrick tales. This one is not hugely based on fast action scenes. This has lots of descriptions and thoughts and lively repartee. Sniping that becomes flirting. Or baiting between captor and captive. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its fair share of action segments. Our heroine and hero meet in an alley and have a fight where they both end up quite battered with swollen lips and black eyes. Needless to say, they don’t hang around for formal introductions at that point. Those come later on.
Our authors handle this sort of writing very well. It’s not boring. Things move along quickly as if you were watching a movie. As you read the descriptions you see the scenery and things happen. As you read the thoughts of people, you get a lot of backstories and understand what motivates them in what they are doing and why they are or are not going to do things in the future. You get hints about things, too. McGoldrick books are always very mentally visual. You need to open your mind when you read them, they are visually rich in such a way as to create a mental video for the reader.
The book was just released yesterday, March 31st. I highly recommend it!
a thoughtful reveal 