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A review by jscarpa14
Dangerous Highlander by Donna Grant
3.0
Okay I've been following Donna Grant on social media for a while because her books have been in the never ending TBR pile pretty much since they came out. The plots look interesting so I follow her to make sure I don't miss one to add the TBR pile, I will admit however I just now have actually gotten around to reading this one.
My reviews are kind of mixed partially because I actually do agree with some of the complaints other have listed. The written Scottish accent comes and goes I honestly feel that's one of those things you need to either disregard all together or commit to fully. As all the warriors are supposed to have been descended from the original Celtic tribes it really should have been something Grant committed and continued religiously throughout dialogue in the book so that the reader could get used to and fall into that cadence of speech instead of being jarred by it the few times it did appear. Additionally Lucan thought about sex to an obsessive distracting degree. Like I get that guys do think about sex, and a guy that hasn't had any in 300 years will probably think about it a little more than the average man when he finally encounters a woman, but I have a hard time believing he'd think about it THAT much. Like Lucan seems to drift off into sexual fantasy during every single conversation he has. Almost every time the book was in his point of view he had a sexual fantasy. Also on the topic of sex it's a personal pet peeve of mine when the scene starts out by making everyone aware that the big bad of the story will be there in moments, and the lead characters look at each other and pretty much say okay we've got a minute or two lets have a quickie. Grant's not alone in that kind of scene it's actually a regular occurrence in books and movies but in my head at the beginning of the scene I'm hearing:
https://youtu.be/GuclYjRJ6jI
And it's like that with every book or movie I read or watch that has that scenario. There's a part of me thinking if you have this much trouble controlling your hormones I'm not really going to blame the bad guy for taking you out.
Other issues I had with the book were time lines, it wasn't really clear at first that these 300 year old warriors weren't the ones that fought the Romans. And while they know time has changed since the days when these guys were human and they speak about it Grant doesn't seem to remember that her readers didn't live in either the 1300s or the 1600s so some examples of how time changed would have been nice. Yes we're all taught major historical events and remembering battle dates in our high school history classes but I feel a writer whose chosen to write in historical time period regardless of genre has a responsibility to her readers to make the time periods she's using in her story seem realistic and to ground the characters as either being from a time or being in a time. Examples of change would have been really helpful in doing this. Also while I get this is a romance novel, Grant has created this really interesting mythology here with some intriguing allies as well as villains. These secondary characters are important enough to her to offer small scenes from their points of view so I don't understand why she didn't spend a little less time filling up pages with sex and sexual fantasy and a little more time playing up this great scenario she's created. The mythos of this world would have me turning pages a lot faster than the endless sex fantasies. Like Cara's a druid, she grows and kills a few plants and seems pretty fast to pick things up and that's pretty much all we get of her druidic bits. I just feel that Grant was so focused on keeping this a clear romance that she skipped playing into all the truly interesting bits about her story that I for one would love to have read more about. You can still have the romance even when you take time to explain the background and create the world. Sure the book may be longer but as long as that information is actually interesting the reader will keep reading. Finally when I read romance I sort of expect that most of the lose ends are going to be neatly tied up at the end of the book, even within a series, maybe a little tendril of foreshadowing into future titles will be offered but in general most aren't very opened ended. This book on the other hand, well the couple got together. But it's a romance so you knew that was going to happen. It leaves unanswered questions about every single character as well as the future dynamics of the relationship like you know the fact that he's immortal and she isn't. He's not going to find her nearly as sexy when she's 80 and looks it and he still looks like he's in his 20s or 30s you know? I really felt this book really needed more and should have answered more of those questions prior to concluding.
That said despite all this I liked the book and the characters and I intended to continue reading the series in hopes that future titles might shift the focus a little from constant sexual thoughts to the intriguing war and mythology Grant has created for her characters.
My reviews are kind of mixed partially because I actually do agree with some of the complaints other have listed. The written Scottish accent comes and goes I honestly feel that's one of those things you need to either disregard all together or commit to fully. As all the warriors are supposed to have been descended from the original Celtic tribes it really should have been something Grant committed and continued religiously throughout dialogue in the book so that the reader could get used to and fall into that cadence of speech instead of being jarred by it the few times it did appear. Additionally Lucan thought about sex to an obsessive distracting degree. Like I get that guys do think about sex, and a guy that hasn't had any in 300 years will probably think about it a little more than the average man when he finally encounters a woman, but I have a hard time believing he'd think about it THAT much. Like Lucan seems to drift off into sexual fantasy during every single conversation he has. Almost every time the book was in his point of view he had a sexual fantasy. Also on the topic of sex it's a personal pet peeve of mine when the scene starts out by making everyone aware that the big bad of the story will be there in moments, and the lead characters look at each other and pretty much say okay we've got a minute or two lets have a quickie. Grant's not alone in that kind of scene it's actually a regular occurrence in books and movies but in my head at the beginning of the scene I'm hearing:
https://youtu.be/GuclYjRJ6jI
And it's like that with every book or movie I read or watch that has that scenario. There's a part of me thinking if you have this much trouble controlling your hormones I'm not really going to blame the bad guy for taking you out.
Other issues I had with the book were time lines, it wasn't really clear at first that these 300 year old warriors weren't the ones that fought the Romans. And while they know time has changed since the days when these guys were human and they speak about it Grant doesn't seem to remember that her readers didn't live in either the 1300s or the 1600s so some examples of how time changed would have been nice. Yes we're all taught major historical events and remembering battle dates in our high school history classes but I feel a writer whose chosen to write in historical time period regardless of genre has a responsibility to her readers to make the time periods she's using in her story seem realistic and to ground the characters as either being from a time or being in a time. Examples of change would have been really helpful in doing this. Also while I get this is a romance novel, Grant has created this really interesting mythology here with some intriguing allies as well as villains. These secondary characters are important enough to her to offer small scenes from their points of view so I don't understand why she didn't spend a little less time filling up pages with sex and sexual fantasy and a little more time playing up this great scenario she's created. The mythos of this world would have me turning pages a lot faster than the endless sex fantasies. Like Cara's a druid, she grows and kills a few plants and seems pretty fast to pick things up and that's pretty much all we get of her druidic bits. I just feel that Grant was so focused on keeping this a clear romance that she skipped playing into all the truly interesting bits about her story that I for one would love to have read more about. You can still have the romance even when you take time to explain the background and create the world. Sure the book may be longer but as long as that information is actually interesting the reader will keep reading. Finally when I read romance I sort of expect that most of the lose ends are going to be neatly tied up at the end of the book, even within a series, maybe a little tendril of foreshadowing into future titles will be offered but in general most aren't very opened ended. This book on the other hand, well the couple got together. But it's a romance so you knew that was going to happen. It leaves unanswered questions about every single character as well as the future dynamics of the relationship like you know the fact that he's immortal and she isn't. He's not going to find her nearly as sexy when she's 80 and looks it and he still looks like he's in his 20s or 30s you know? I really felt this book really needed more and should have answered more of those questions prior to concluding.
That said despite all this I liked the book and the characters and I intended to continue reading the series in hopes that future titles might shift the focus a little from constant sexual thoughts to the intriguing war and mythology Grant has created for her characters.