Sandy M’s review of Tall, Dark and Kilted by Allie Mackay
Contemporary Paranormal Time Travel Romance released by Signet 4 Nov 08

I usually give an author a second try when I read one of her books and it doesn’t do much for me. Just because I don’t care for one book doesn’t mean the same is going to happen with the next.  Too bad that’s not what happened in this case.  In fact, I liked this book even less than the first, Highlander In Her Bed. I have yet to read the book that comes between these two and I doubt when I find it in the TBR pile that I ever will.

I remember thinking Highlander in Her Bed had too many silly elements to it to be a really good read, but this book has that one beat by a mile. The hero has been cursed and for the last seven hundred years he’s been pleasuring women left and right, sporting a constant hard-on that he hides behind his battle shield that he keeps handy for such purpose.  Okay, I’m one who can suspend disbelief for the sake of a story, so I let this bit go, hoping for something, I don’t know, more, different, whatever. However, I certainly wasn’t ready for the rest of this book.

What I got was said Highlander squeezing the hell out of his penis because, although his original curse has been lifted, a new one has taken its place — he must not become fully aroused for the next year or the first curse will come back with a vengeance, new additions to it to make him even more crazed than he was due to the initial curse.  His painful squeeze is due to meeting the heroine, of course.  Later he binds himself flatter than a pancake with his tartan so he can at least pleasure the heroine and not be condemned to hell and back for it.  Please.

This is all way too much, even for me.  On top of that, the characters never really have any serious contact, let alone conversations or anything else, before they’re falling for each other on looks alone.  Yeah, I know that’s how some relationships can start, but here the hero is a ghost and she’s in denial about that for quite some time, telling herself he’s a charlatan.  It’s not until much later when he comes clean and tells her about his curse that the book settles down and could become an interesting read. By then they’re already in love just based on seeing each other around the castle and interacting with boring secondary characters grousing about a huge, irritating bird.

Despite all this, the hero and heroine are likable characters, at least enough so that my grade didn’t go down any further.  But after this I just have no desire whatsoever to try this author again. There’s too many other really good books out there for me to waste my time on ones like this.

Grade: D

Summary:

A good man is hard to find…

Cilla Swanner has been jilted by her lover, and is struggling with a jewelry business that’s far from sparkling. She needs a getaway to someplace quiet and remote. Someplace like Dunroamin Castle in Scotland, where her aunt and uncle run a retirement home in the majestic Highlands. But what she finds there may be more than she can handle…

Or is it the other way around?

Centuries ago, the roguish Scots knight known as Hardwick was renowned for his swordsmanship both on and off the battlefield. Then a traveling bard cursed him to wander the world forever, pleasing a different woman each night with no hope of fulfillment or true love. Until he meets Cilla—who may be his only hope for salvation…

Read an excerpt.