A review by protovulcan
Moonstruck Madness by Laurie McBain

medium-paced

3.75

the romantic story of a girl who's clan is wiped out in front of her, who flees the country and the culture she was raised in for 12 years to try and survive in the colonizing country of which she half belongs to. somehow from the ages of 13 to 17 she is skilled enough to rob rich men to support her sister, aunt, and little brother. her dressing as "bonnie charlie" is about the only care she has towards her scottish upbringing and once she abandons that later in the book its not even worth mentioning (until they discover her grandfather, who was the laird, hid a bunch of gold in scotland). aside from my annoyance that she integrated into english society like a fish to water and doesn't seem to care to teach her little brother his heritage or how her culture is being outlawed across the land- sorry, anyways. that's not what this book is about.  sabrina is cool, if a bit greedy and stupid, she had to become the sole provider for her whacky family because her english dad is a deadbeat living in italy or spain. her back and forth with lucien is captivating enough to keep me reading and they've got that classic Emma style age gap (17 and mid 30s!) which is so chic. I think the evil murderous twin cousins were underutilized, they only have 3 scenes in the whole book and i loooove psychotic family members in old romances. around page 300 something happens in this book that takes all the wind out of my sails for sabrina and lucien, and then it's hard to recover from there.  also this book was really doing the scottish no favors i was kind of offended at that ending.  pro english propaganda!