Review: Captured by the Highlander by Julianne Maclean ★★★

Captured by the Highlander by Julianne Maclean

Genre: Historical Romance (Highlanders, clans, abduction, mystery, duplicity, explicit sex scenes, feisty heroine)

Series: Book one in the Highlander (MacLean) series

Original Language: English
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Country: USA
Publication Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0312365318
Page Count: 336 pages

My Rating: ★★★

Summary

Lady Amelia Templeton would rather die than surrender to a man like Duncan MacLean. He is the fiercest warrior of this clan-her people’s sworn enemy-and tonight he is standing over her bed. Eyes blazing, muscles taut, and battle axe gleaming, MacLean has come to kill Amelia’s fiancé. But once he sees the lovely, innocent Amelia, he decides to take her instead... Stealing the young bride-to-be is the perfect revenge against the man who murdered Duncan’s one true love. But Lady Amelia turns out to be more than a pawn of vengeance and war. this brave, beautiful woman touches something deep in Duncan’s soul that is even more powerful than a warrior’s fury. but when Amelia begins to fall in love with her captor-and surrenders in his arms-the real battle begins...

REVIEW

I almost feel like I read two books in one with this novel. There was a really clever twist in the plot half way through, which took me totally by surprise and changed my view of one of the main characters completely. Without giving anything away, there is an element of duplicity going on and when that is revealed, the rest of the novel is completely different.

I have to say I usually pride myself on seeing these things coming a mile off from the little clues we get, and they were there, but I didn't catch it this time. Minus one respect point for me. And once revealed, I really had a strong urge to go back to the beginning and look at this character again and examine every word they said, armed with this new knowledge. But of course, I didn't really do that. I went on and read the other half of the book instead, which unfortunately, wasn't as good. The reveal worked great as a plot device for shock value, but I didn't like the character as much afterwards, so that kind of dulled the effect.

All together, it's a good highlander read, but not a great one. I would read from this author again, but I wouldn't be tempted to re-read this one as I would others.

I give it 3 stars.