Book Review: Kiss of the Highlander (Karen Marie Moning)

A laird trapped between centuries...

Enchanted by a powerful spell, Highland laird Drustan MacKeltar slumbered for nearly five centuries hidden deep in a cave, until an unlikely savior awakened him. The enticing lass who dressed and spoke like no woman he’d ever known was from his distant future, where crumbled ruins were all that remained of his vanished world. Drustan knew he had to return to his own century if he was to save his people from a terrible fate. And he needed the bewitching woman by his side....

A woman changed forever in his arms...

Gwen Cassidy had come to Scotland to shake up her humdrum life and, just maybe, meet a man. How could she have known that a tumble down a Highland ravine would send her plunging into an underground cavern — to land atop the most devastatingly seductive man she’d ever seen? Or that once he’d kissed her, he wouldn’t let her go?

Bound to Drustan by a passion stronger than time, Gwen is swept back to sixteenth-century Scotland, where a treacherous enemy plots against them ... and where a warrior with the power to change history will defy time itself for the woman he loves....

This is by far the most engaging novel in the series, and one of, if not my favourite in the whole series. While the first three couples have been perfect for each other in the classical sense, our hero Drustan and our heroine Gwen engaged in a romantic play with unconventional roles. In general I prefer the latter, but in a novel where the protagonists are centuries apart, the female being in the later century, I expected a fiesty heroine and Gwen is exactly that! Which is why I love the role reversal in The Highlander's Kiss so very much.

I always love Karen Marie Moning's characters and both Gwen and Drustan have a special place in my heart. I admire Gwen's firmness in her stance, her persistence and her bluntness. Despite her inexistent love life, rift with late parents and tumbling career, she can still spare Drustan a piece of herself. Drustan MacKeltar is a persistent man himself, but with a more stubborn, arrogant edge. First born, laird and with an ego the size of Scotland, waking up beneath Gwen in the middle of the twenty first century is one hell of a surprise for him. Despite the challenge, he takes everything in his stride and maintains his dazzling charm. Drustan also comes up with seriously funny things in this book, and that alone should be read by anyone! There are no limits to masculine pride and testosterone in Kiss of the Highlander, so prepared to be charmed!

The Highlander's Kiss is a plot-driven novel, really. It has dramatic irony, so part of it is predictable from that viewpoint. However, it's still such a real roller coaster ride; just when I thought I knew the plot, it twists and turns and surprises me. More than once too! Out of all the books in the series, this one has more intellectual motifs as Gwen is a physicist. She analyses the plot in her own terms and produces academic explanations of her adventures. In a way, her scientific reasoning adds colour to the plot and explains the sudden twists well. Of course, need I mention how romantic it is? Especially the oath and the ending? Well heck, it's romantic!

Like the rest of the highlander series, The Highlander's Kiss has vibrant secondary characters bound to recur in the succeeding books. It ends perfectly to set up the next book, which revolves primarily around Dageus, Drustan's brother. Although it closes the Gwen and Drustan's chapter well, it also leaves a gripping cliffhanger which will have readers demanding the next book.

Besides, don't you just love those sexy, luscious lips on the cover ?

FIVE STARS.

* I received this copy for review.