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A review by biblio_gabriella
My Heart's in the Highlands by Amy Hoff
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.