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biblio_gabriella's review against another edition
4.0
I received a free copy of this book from BookSirens in exchange for an honest review.
3.75 stars. The premise of My Heart’s in the Highlands had me bursting with excitement. A Scottish Victorian time-traveling female scientist who accidentally travels back to 1293 (!!!) and falls in love with the powerful female soon-to-be-chief of one of the Highland clans?? Incredible. Masterful. This book isn’t perfect by any means, and I found some of the plot choices iffy, but I sure enjoyed reading it.
It’s obvious Hoff knows her stuff about Scottish history, and this book made me want to visit Scotland even more than I already did. The descriptions are lush, and I could see everything as if it were right in front of me. Writing about life in 1293 must have been a challenge, but Hoff’s writing is seamless.
Jane is a wonderful character, and I loved how traveling back in time informed her of not only life back then, but her own time as well. Jane is strong and self-assured, and Ainslie is probably one of the only people who could go toe-to-toe with her. They’re certainly a dynamic pair! And David, Jane’s gay husband, is wonderfully genial and supportive.
Several of the scenes between Jane and Ainslie are incredibly sweet. Like, mushy, aww-inducing, that’s-where-it’s-at level stuff. However, a few of the love scenes just did not sit well with me, because I didn’t feel there was enough consent happening. I mean, they both undeniably wanted to be doing what they were doing, but yeah, I’d have liked some more explicit consent. Also, the romance is totally insta-love, which I didn’t exactly mind, but found a bit jarring at times.
It’s unclear how Jane ends up on the island of Islay in 1293 in the first place, and the co-occurring passage of time (?) between 1888 and 1293 seem a bit random. Maybe this is all intentional though, since time-traveling is a new, unpredictable science. Regardless, this book is definitely more historical fiction than science fiction.
The Author’s Guide was an interesting and necessary addition to the book. In the guide, Hoff describes which characters were based on real people, which story elements were true to the time period, which elements were entirely artistic license, and which elements were estimates based on limited evidence. The most obvious use of artistic license is that 19th-century Jane and 13th-century Ainslie could have even communicated at all, much less so easily.
Overall, this was a memorable read, and I’m off on a Scottish history Wikipedia binge.
3.75 stars. The premise of My Heart’s in the Highlands had me bursting with excitement. A Scottish Victorian time-traveling female scientist who accidentally travels back to 1293 (!!!) and falls in love with the powerful female soon-to-be-chief of one of the Highland clans?? Incredible. Masterful. This book isn’t perfect by any means, and I found some of the plot choices iffy, but I sure enjoyed reading it.
It’s obvious Hoff knows her stuff about Scottish history, and this book made me want to visit Scotland even more than I already did. The descriptions are lush, and I could see everything as if it were right in front of me. Writing about life in 1293 must have been a challenge, but Hoff’s writing is seamless.
Jane is a wonderful character, and I loved how traveling back in time informed her of not only life back then, but her own time as well. Jane is strong and self-assured, and Ainslie is probably one of the only people who could go toe-to-toe with her. They’re certainly a dynamic pair! And David, Jane’s gay husband, is wonderfully genial and supportive.
Several of the scenes between Jane and Ainslie are incredibly sweet. Like, mushy, aww-inducing, that’s-where-it’s-at level stuff. However, a few of the love scenes just did not sit well with me, because I didn’t feel there was enough consent happening. I mean, they both undeniably wanted to be doing what they were doing, but yeah, I’d have liked some more explicit consent. Also, the romance is totally insta-love, which I didn’t exactly mind, but found a bit jarring at times.
It’s unclear how Jane ends up on the island of Islay in 1293 in the first place, and the co-occurring passage of time (?) between 1888 and 1293 seem a bit random. Maybe this is all intentional though, since time-traveling is a new, unpredictable science. Regardless, this book is definitely more historical fiction than science fiction.
The Author’s Guide was an interesting and necessary addition to the book. In the guide, Hoff describes which characters were based on real people, which story elements were true to the time period, which elements were entirely artistic license, and which elements were estimates based on limited evidence. The most obvious use of artistic license is that 19th-century Jane and 13th-century Ainslie could have even communicated at all, much less so easily.
Overall, this was a memorable read, and I’m off on a Scottish history Wikipedia binge.
corrie's review
4.0
With My Heart’s in the Highlands, Amy Hoff went for a historically ambitious debut romance novel. Like all firsts, this one, too, had some teething problems. That’s understandable, every new author has to grow into it.
I don’t know much about the history of the Scots, but reading that Hoff is a Scottish historian, cultural anthropologist, and folklorist, we can assume she really knows her material and you are in safe hands. Sure, she has taken some artistic liberties here and there but she is honest about it. I think she offers the most comprehensive author’s guide in the back of her book I’ve ever seen. Any historical question you might have after reading this book will be answered. She even breaks it down per chapter. Very impressive.
So Victorian Lady Jane Crichton is brilliant. So brilliant in fact she has built a time machine. We are pretty much kept in the dark about how it works, what powers it, or what it looks like. I have to say I was really disappointed by that because I love time travel and it was mostly ignored, as was the lady’s brilliance. In fact, her rather reckless and impulsive actions made me doubt her brain power. Hoff could have spent some more time on this character.
Lady Crighton fires up her mystery machine and basically crashlands into Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill’s lap. We are now in the year 1200-something-another and in need of some subtitles. Ainslie’s dialogue will be heavily accented. I understand why the author chose to do it this way but it will give your brain a bit of a work-out. Readers who don’t have a feel for other languages might struggle.
The romance part was not quite to my tastes. I felt this was the weaker part of the book. Lady Jane went from sexless to ravenous in the blink of an eye. Ainslie hovered between being a perfect gentle-woman and a rapist. There were some borderline abusive sex scenes that made me uncomfortable. I did not really understand the dynamics. They were all over the place.
Overall the book was entertaining although plot-wise it felt a bit too easy sometimes. Also I would have loved a bit more show than tell. Kudos on the historical part. I love to see what Amy Hoff will show us next time.
f/f explicit with a trigger warning for dubious consent
Themes: Victorian Edinburgh, Scotland, The Edinburgh Seven, time machine, 13th century, the feuding Donalds and Campbells.
3.5 Stars
* A free copy was provided by Netgalley and Bella Books for an honest review.
I don’t know much about the history of the Scots, but reading that Hoff is a Scottish historian, cultural anthropologist, and folklorist, we can assume she really knows her material and you are in safe hands. Sure, she has taken some artistic liberties here and there but she is honest about it. I think she offers the most comprehensive author’s guide in the back of her book I’ve ever seen. Any historical question you might have after reading this book will be answered. She even breaks it down per chapter. Very impressive.
So Victorian Lady Jane Crichton is brilliant. So brilliant in fact she has built a time machine. We are pretty much kept in the dark about how it works, what powers it, or what it looks like. I have to say I was really disappointed by that because I love time travel and it was mostly ignored, as was the lady’s brilliance. In fact, her rather reckless and impulsive actions made me doubt her brain power. Hoff could have spent some more time on this character.
Lady Crighton fires up her mystery machine and basically crashlands into Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill’s lap. We are now in the year 1200-something-another and in need of some subtitles. Ainslie’s dialogue will be heavily accented. I understand why the author chose to do it this way but it will give your brain a bit of a work-out. Readers who don’t have a feel for other languages might struggle.
The romance part was not quite to my tastes. I felt this was the weaker part of the book. Lady Jane went from sexless to ravenous in the blink of an eye. Ainslie hovered between being a perfect gentle-woman and a rapist. There were some borderline abusive sex scenes that made me uncomfortable. I did not really understand the dynamics. They were all over the place.
Overall the book was entertaining although plot-wise it felt a bit too easy sometimes. Also I would have loved a bit more show than tell. Kudos on the historical part. I love to see what Amy Hoff will show us next time.
f/f explicit with a trigger warning for dubious consent
Themes: Victorian Edinburgh, Scotland, The Edinburgh Seven, time machine, 13th century, the feuding Donalds and Campbells.
3.5 Stars
* A free copy was provided by Netgalley and Bella Books for an honest review.
myth's review
4.0
This book was lovely and clearly self-published.
I don't say that as a knock, because obviously I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it did drag a bit about 3/4 in and some of the chapters and time breaks were a little off (at least there were no glaring grammatical errors, unlike Certain Traditionally Published Novels I could name *cough*Tiger's Curse*cough*)
But again, this book was super fun! Highly recommended for your sweet wlw needs.
I don't say that as a knock, because obviously I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it did drag a bit about 3/4 in and some of the chapters and time breaks were a little off (at least there were no glaring grammatical errors, unlike Certain Traditionally Published Novels I could name *cough*Tiger's Curse*cough*)
But again, this book was super fun! Highly recommended for your sweet wlw needs.
queerbones's review
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
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