Scan barcode
hnm2015's review
5.0
Loved the story grace and grey melt my heart ❤️. Great characters, great imagery and great writing.
kimberly_b's review
2.0
I really wish this book had been better. For a rocket scientist, Grace isn't all that intelligent at times. And, for a Scot, Greylen doesn't seem all that Scottish (he doesn't even have an accent!).
I didn't feel the emotional connection between Grace and Greylen and their instalove. There was a lot of kissing at odd times during unromantic moments. And, Grace's suddenly old-fashioned notions at the end came across as ridiculous and too little too late.
Baby is the least needy and fussy newborn I've ever heard of! Baby was content to be fed when people happened to remember he was there. He was a plot device and nothing more.
Speaking of the plot, it seemed meandering and disjointed. I'm sorry to say it, but Chapman's writing wasn't the best.
Note: For any one interested in the survival aspect of the story, that portion takes up very little of the novel.
I didn't feel the emotional connection between Grace and Greylen and their instalove. There was a lot of kissing at odd times during unromantic moments. And, Grace's suddenly old-fashioned notions at the end came across as ridiculous and too little too late.
Baby is the least needy and fussy newborn I've ever heard of! Baby was content to be fed when people happened to remember he was there. He was a plot device and nothing more.
Speaking of the plot, it seemed meandering and disjointed. I'm sorry to say it, but Chapman's writing wasn't the best.
Note: For any one interested in the survival aspect of the story, that portion takes up very little of the novel.
joth's review against another edition
2.0
I liked the idea of the book: highlander, time travel, romance and snow (yes, I love snow) but unfortunately I found this story a bit of a miss. It starts off really sad with a death of a loved one and some really emotional scenes; if that is your sort of thing I think you will love this, but I read to escape the stress of real life. I found that it set the tone for the rest of the book. The story chugged along without engaging me and I was pleased to finally get to the end.
The part of the story that I think would have been interesting, the highlander finding himself in the future after time traveling and having to get used to a new way of living, wasn't described at all, which I found disappointing.
The part of the story that I think would have been interesting, the highlander finding himself in the future after time traveling and having to get used to a new way of living, wasn't described at all, which I found disappointing.
morganzapimp's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
elblackwell's review
3.0
This is the second Janet Chapman book I’ve started, though only the first I’ve finished. I attempted to read The Seduction of his Wife because it sounded so delightfully batshit insane, but within 20 pages of the hero losing his shit with the heroine over the most minor of things I had to put it down. At the very least, this one didn’t start that way.
Charming the Highlander begins with a 13th century druid trying to send a 13th century highland laird (it’s always a laird) to the 20th century so he can marry an as-yet-anonymous/unknown 20th century lady and produce lots of babies so the druid can eventually have his protegee. But then Greylen MacKeage (Greylen being a totally classic 13th century Scottish name, so many Greylens), along with a few of his men, are ambushed by a rival clan, the MacBains. Long prologue short: everyone gets flung into the 20th century.
Flash forward four years and Grace Sutter is saying goodbye to her dying sister Mary. Mary ran away from the father of her baby when he proposed marriage and explained that, oh, as an aside, he’s actually from the 13th century? Several months later, Mary gets into a fatal car accident (trying to get back to him once she realizes she loves him enough to deal with him being a time traveler), leaving her slightly premature baby to her sister with the promise that Grace will take the baby back to its father.
This is the set-up, but before I go further with my thoughts, I will say that this book suffers from a common problem of throwing a million plot ideas at the wall and just kind of half-assedly dealing with all of them. I might be in the minority here, but I honestly don’t need much of a plot at all if the relationship is strong enough to carry the novel along. Which is all set-up to talk about the rest of this book.
Grey(len) and Grace end up on the same six seater bush plane to Pine Creek, Maine. It crashes. Greylen uses CPR to bring Baby back to life. Oh right, because Mary makes Grace promise to let the baby’s father name him, Grace continues to call the month old baby Baby for 3/4s of the book. Which is delightful, you can imagine. Naturally, because of magic and science, Grey falls in love with Grace at first sight and in true Highlander Laird fashion becomes super possessive.
Though, I will say, Grey’s possessiveness and other associated 13th century Man Traits are almost an afterthought. As if Chapman was concerned that maybe he was little TOO modern and forward thinking, so there should probably be a part where he curses at her and screams he loves her while grasping her shoulders almost painfully. It’s all very paint by numbers in that respect, but since the author wasn’t terribly committed to the accuracy of Grey’s characterization, he’s not nearly as intolerable as one would expect.
Then there’s another near death experience where Grace almost freezes to death before she finally makes it back home after Grey saves her life. (Again.) But there’s a massive ice storm! This is where there starts to be a million plot threads that are just tossed out left and right.
Grey’s family is opening a ski resort and the ice storm MIGHT ruin their ski lift. Baby’s father’s Christmas tree farm is in danger of being ruined. Grace abandoned her job in Virginia to come here, and her almost-sort-of-boyfriend-and-boss shows up more than halfway through the book in order to tell her that her project (she’s a rocket scientist) has been sold to a Japanese firm that is going to use it to build a weapon of mass destruction. But wait! She can’t pull out because agents from that company are coming to kidnap her and will probably kill her!
It was such an unnecessary divergence that I was just aggravated. The book developed a totally different tone and plot for all of about 75 pages in the latter half of the book and distracted from what the rest of the book was about. There’s also a whole backstory of the MacKeages hating Baby’s dad because of a whole mess that went down back in the 13th century.
It’s exhausting, honestly. I can’t even remember all the stuff that got brought up and dismissed in the blink of an eye. But it resulted in the book just getting terribly messy and convoluted by the end of it. Between the magic plotline that was also in the background but never fully committed to, and the rocket ship/WMD plotline that was never fully committed to, and the 13th century personalities and adjustments that are never fully committed to, it just felt like a novel that was trying to be everything, but not achieving much of anything.
All this to say, I didn’t hate the book. Certainly not like I hated The Lion’s Lady that I reviewed previously. I gave this one 3 stars on goodreads, because on the whole, it’s inoffensive and silly and certainly a quick read. But it’s honestly more somewhere in the range of 2.5-2.75.
Oh! But I almost forgot my favourite part! Grace had to hide Baby’s feet from his father for a long time because she wasn’t ready to give him up (and thought the father was insane because he thought he was from the 13th century) because —- the both had twelve toes. At that point, I just had to put my head down and laugh.
Charming the Highlander begins with a 13th century druid trying to send a 13th century highland laird (it’s always a laird) to the 20th century so he can marry an as-yet-anonymous/unknown 20th century lady and produce lots of babies so the druid can eventually have his protegee. But then Greylen MacKeage (Greylen being a totally classic 13th century Scottish name, so many Greylens), along with a few of his men, are ambushed by a rival clan, the MacBains. Long prologue short: everyone gets flung into the 20th century.
Flash forward four years and Grace Sutter is saying goodbye to her dying sister Mary. Mary ran away from the father of her baby when he proposed marriage and explained that, oh, as an aside, he’s actually from the 13th century? Several months later, Mary gets into a fatal car accident (trying to get back to him once she realizes she loves him enough to deal with him being a time traveler), leaving her slightly premature baby to her sister with the promise that Grace will take the baby back to its father.
This is the set-up, but before I go further with my thoughts, I will say that this book suffers from a common problem of throwing a million plot ideas at the wall and just kind of half-assedly dealing with all of them. I might be in the minority here, but I honestly don’t need much of a plot at all if the relationship is strong enough to carry the novel along. Which is all set-up to talk about the rest of this book.
Grey(len) and Grace end up on the same six seater bush plane to Pine Creek, Maine. It crashes. Greylen uses CPR to bring Baby back to life. Oh right, because Mary makes Grace promise to let the baby’s father name him, Grace continues to call the month old baby Baby for 3/4s of the book. Which is delightful, you can imagine. Naturally, because of magic and science, Grey falls in love with Grace at first sight and in true Highlander Laird fashion becomes super possessive.
Though, I will say, Grey’s possessiveness and other associated 13th century Man Traits are almost an afterthought. As if Chapman was concerned that maybe he was little TOO modern and forward thinking, so there should probably be a part where he curses at her and screams he loves her while grasping her shoulders almost painfully. It’s all very paint by numbers in that respect, but since the author wasn’t terribly committed to the accuracy of Grey’s characterization, he’s not nearly as intolerable as one would expect.
Then there’s another near death experience where Grace almost freezes to death before she finally makes it back home after Grey saves her life. (Again.) But there’s a massive ice storm! This is where there starts to be a million plot threads that are just tossed out left and right.
Grey’s family is opening a ski resort and the ice storm MIGHT ruin their ski lift. Baby’s father’s Christmas tree farm is in danger of being ruined. Grace abandoned her job in Virginia to come here, and her almost-sort-of-boyfriend-and-boss shows up more than halfway through the book in order to tell her that her project (she’s a rocket scientist) has been sold to a Japanese firm that is going to use it to build a weapon of mass destruction. But wait! She can’t pull out because agents from that company are coming to kidnap her and will probably kill her!
It was such an unnecessary divergence that I was just aggravated. The book developed a totally different tone and plot for all of about 75 pages in the latter half of the book and distracted from what the rest of the book was about. There’s also a whole backstory of the MacKeages hating Baby’s dad because of a whole mess that went down back in the 13th century.
It’s exhausting, honestly. I can’t even remember all the stuff that got brought up and dismissed in the blink of an eye. But it resulted in the book just getting terribly messy and convoluted by the end of it. Between the magic plotline that was also in the background but never fully committed to, and the rocket ship/WMD plotline that was never fully committed to, and the 13th century personalities and adjustments that are never fully committed to, it just felt like a novel that was trying to be everything, but not achieving much of anything.
All this to say, I didn’t hate the book. Certainly not like I hated The Lion’s Lady that I reviewed previously. I gave this one 3 stars on goodreads, because on the whole, it’s inoffensive and silly and certainly a quick read. But it’s honestly more somewhere in the range of 2.5-2.75.
Oh! But I almost forgot my favourite part! Grace had to hide Baby’s feet from his father for a long time because she wasn’t ready to give him up (and thought the father was insane because he thought he was from the 13th century) because —- the both had twelve toes. At that point, I just had to put my head down and laugh.
kriff08's review
4.0
Oooo I've been looking for something exactly like this! I have a soft spot for time travel romances and after finishing Karen Marie Moning's Highlander series I was left bereft. It seemed I'd find one and it would be just one mess of "let's get these clothes off!" That's one thing I loved about this book, the build up and that it had just enough depth to make it an interesting story.
There were a few odd moments in this book that just weren't all that polished, but overall I can look past them and enjoy the light hearted read.
I will say I kind of missed the integrating of different times. Grey seemed to have already adapted to modern times and thinking even before Grace really got on the scene. I do wish there was a bit more 12th century Scotland involved. I'd like to see if a book in this series goes back.
I'm definitely planning to read another. This was the perfect mix of light romance, time travel, magic and suspense for me.
There were a few odd moments in this book that just weren't all that polished, but overall I can look past them and enjoy the light hearted read.
I will say I kind of missed the integrating of different times. Grey seemed to have already adapted to modern times and thinking even before Grace really got on the scene. I do wish there was a bit more 12th century Scotland involved. I'd like to see if a book in this series goes back.
I'm definitely planning to read another. This was the perfect mix of light romance, time travel, magic and suspense for me.
geleeregina's review
3.0
Overall quick read. I'm not one that usually likes time travel books, but this was a good change of pace for me. Will put book 2 on my TBR list.
loverofromance's review
4.0
Grace Stutter, having the responsibility of delivering her sisters baby to the father, since her sister died, waits six weeks before heading to Maine, having a feeling that she would be making a new start....but then her plane crashes on the mountain and she, the baby, and a sexy highland warrior -Greyland-are the survivors. Now they are pushed together out of survival, but a deep passion is awakened between them...a passion that burns slowly to a deep love that will change their lives forever.....
I have never read this author, but I was in the mood for some good highlander romance, and I decided that after hearing some great things from this author, I knew that I needed to try her out, and I definitely wasn't disappointed. I just got this book a few hours ago, and just finished, I was that drawn into Charming The Highlander. I think I loved everything about this book. I just love it when you have time travel books when dealing with sexy highlanders from the past....so yummy with the accent, attitude and their fiery passion for a woman they love. There were definitely many witty moments throughout the story that would make you bow over and laugh your heart out. The writing was charming and tended to draw the reader in from the first to the very last page of the book. I felt like I was actually there in the story...the scenes were so vivid in detail....definitely a keeper for me!!
I have never read this author, but I was in the mood for some good highlander romance, and I decided that after hearing some great things from this author, I knew that I needed to try her out, and I definitely wasn't disappointed. I just got this book a few hours ago, and just finished, I was that drawn into Charming The Highlander. I think I loved everything about this book. I just love it when you have time travel books when dealing with sexy highlanders from the past....so yummy with the accent, attitude and their fiery passion for a woman they love. There were definitely many witty moments throughout the story that would make you bow over and laugh your heart out. The writing was charming and tended to draw the reader in from the first to the very last page of the book. I felt like I was actually there in the story...the scenes were so vivid in detail....definitely a keeper for me!!