Sunday, April 19, 2020

Medieval Romance with No Wrong Steps - The MacKinnon's Bride

The MacKinnon's Bride (The Highland Brides Book 1) by [Crosby, Tanya Anne]After reading Lynsay Sands's The Deed and being completely turned off by the perpetuation of chauvinsim as being somehow more endearing in the past than in the present, I was wary that I would find a historical romance set in the medieval period that would still appeal to my female-forward criteria for romance while also satisfying my wish to read in this period.

I wasn't expecting much from The MacKinnon's Bride because it was free through Amazon Prime. That was a mistake. The premise here that Page, the daughter of an English nobleman, is taken captive by a clan of Scots led by the MacKinnon in order to exchange for his own son, is a good setup that puts these two in unwilling company. Their chemistry develops at a good pace, and there are no flubs with her captivity somehow becoming romantic yet against her will. The author makes their mutual interest clear from the beginning, and how MacKinnon willingly keeps Page with his party once her father repudiates her makes him chivalrous and endearing. He does lots of sweet things that make it clear he genuinely cares about her, more than anyone else ever has in her life. He never forces himself on her, but he comes off as a charming rogue nevertheless, and it's extremely effective. So is the fact that there is no insta-lust in this story - at least not that is acted upon. There's a good balance between the narrative voices of both Page and the MacKinnon, and their backstories make them both sympathetic characters and perfectly suited to each other, which makes you root for the match even more. That to me is what makes romance satisfying. The steamy scenes weren't the best I've ever read, but there wasn't anything wrong with them per se either. I guess the emotional buildup was so high that I was expecting a greater reward, but their physical chemistry was somewhat perfunctory.

The secondary plot about a traitor/murderer in the midst of the clansmen is interesting, but I ended up being a bit ambiguous about it in the end because there was enough of a threat to their blossoming romance when Page's father does eventually seek to regain his daughter, so I wasn't really sure what that side-plot added to the overall narrative. It was interesting though, which is a sign that the author is a good storyteller, even if she couldn't really weave it all together as tightly as I would have liked.

I will definitely be picking up the other books in this series - at least now I have hope that medieval-period romance can in fact be done right.

K. Rating: 4/5

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