Sandy M’s review of Lord of the Isles by Debbie Mazzuca
Time Travel Romance published by Zebra 1 Apr 10
I wanted to read this book because it’s a time travel, which is a favorite paranormal read for me. While the actual time traveling part of the story is pretty good, it’s the characters who I never really warmed up to until the very end, which is a little too late to bring a reader around to that “wow” factor that’s needed to make it a great read.
Ali is a medical intern with some issues going on in her job, so she’s taken a modeling job in Scotland to let things die down at home. (Not sure where the modeling came from.) She ends up at Castle Dunvegan instead of her hotel. With a storm unleashing, the cabbie can’t get his taxi up a hill to the hotel, so the woman gets out of the car, hefts her luggage from the trunk and begins to walk, her bag’s wheels sticking in the mud the whole way. Huh? She’s a medical student, for heaven’s sake, with more brains than that. At least I would think so. She couldn’t head back to spend a dry night in the closest town the cab could get to, then make her way to her intended destination?
Of course not. Without the fae intervening in the most obtrusive way, it seems. Anyway, making her way to Dungevan, the keeper welcomes her, gives her a spot of tea and a tour , regaling her with the ancient story of Clan MacLeod and the fairy flag, which was given to the clan to use in times of urgent need only.
Having finally retired for the night to wait out the storm, Ali is in the throes of the most wonderfully erotic dream, making love with one of those Scots romance readers like to read about. Only it’s not a dream. She’s somehow been thrown back to the time and in the bed of Laird Rory MacLeod.
Rory has been wounded in battle, and his kinsmen decide fae help is needed, thus Ali and her medical knowledge are the answer sent to them when they wave the fairy flag. Thrown for a loop not only at the appearance out of nowhere of a woman in his bed, she also bears a remarkable likeness to his late wife, his guilt over her death not abated. He has vowed never to love or marry again, concentrating instead on his duty to his clan. Rory also has to protect Ali from those of his clan who are too superstitious when it comes to her doctoring, things folks of his time have never seen.
So begins the usual big misunderstandings that happen in romance novels; the usual high-handed, ignorant priest looking to burn someone at the stake for witchcraft; the make-up sex — which is a little too defined in description in this case — after a fight; and a heroine who can do everything, including escaping a castle tower with a rope of sheets and no injury. Hmmmmm. We never get beyond what we’ve all read before.
I actually enjoyed some of the secondary characters more than the hero and heroine. While Rory at times doubted Ali, his brother, Iain, never did. He was her champion all the way around, no questions asked. Ali’s protection of her maid, who is hounded by the above-mentioned priest, is admirable, but she takes her modern woman-of-the-world attitude a smidge too far at times. I did like the twist in the story at the end, something I didn’t see coming after all of the above I saw from a mile away.
This book is an okay read, just really fluffy, I guess you could say, with the time travel mode and the twist at the end being the only things different from the norm.
Grade: C
Summary:
After travelling to Scotland on business, the bed of a highland laird is the last place Ali Graham expected to wake up. But there’s no mistaking the irresistibly masculine Scottish Highlander whose chambers she’s accidentally infiltrated—or the severe wound he’s suffered in battle. As a doctor, Ali knows how to heal his injury, how to nurse his body back to health. What she doesn’t know is how to heal his heart…
A proud warrior and the leader of a powerful clan, Rory MacLeod is ready to fight to the death to protect his homeland. After all, ever since tragedy robbed him of his wife, he has had nothing to lose. Yet the mysterious woman sent to tend his wounds is beginning to reawaken something inside him—something that he’d rather stay buried. But when true passion is mixed with Scottish magic, even the most fearsome warrior could begin to fall…
Read an excerpt.
