The Secret Clan: Highland Bride (Mass Market Paperback)

Due to unforeseen circumstances and the political climate she soon finds that she is to be married to the handsome, wealthy, but totally boring, and slightly foppish Sir Alexander Chisholm - unbeknownst to Bab the alter ego of - who else - the Black Fox. Alex plays a dangerous game, trying to help save the Highlander's way of life, yet falling helplessly in love with the lovely Bab McRae. And Bab - she will go along with the marriage to Alex - while secretly yearning for the Fox - such a dilemma! But then you had all these wee folk jumbled into this mix with some trying to help things along and some trying to hinder?

As this was my first Amanda Scott novel - I was at first very confused trying to follow the beginning of the story - actually three different plots going on here and consequently why this is not being given the highest of ratings. While it was a very good story, I fully believe that were I reading this after having read the prequels of the Secret Clan series I might have truly enjoyed it more. The two main characters of Alex and Bab were very interesting and very well developed and their dialogs witty and fun, although I was immediately making comparisons to the Zorro type plot. The 'wee folk' were very amusing and engaging. All in all this was a very good read, but as a matter of personal preference, I would have liked to have read the prequels first to have better enjoyed this and gained a better sense of family.

The trouble with this author is that she reallty seems to work SO hard at making a series by setting up the next book with his long lost cousin that it waters down the romance and also really detracts from the fabulous Alex.

And her women are all vacuous, slightly mad, or shrews. Bab is a pain, always whining about how bored she is if she isn't out hunting, and all the talk about paddling her bottom like a child gets wearing. It was the same in Hidden Heiress.

Also all the to-ing and fro-ing about whether or not she will wed him. In the end she does nothing because, as with the other novels, a spell has been cast over them both, and so they never really develop the love and commitment we hope to see.

Fin and Molly make an apperance in this novel as in Hidden Heiress, but there is no sign of her own brother Patrick, even at her own wedding, is really strange.

The wee fairy folk are not quite so irritating this time, nor quite so libidinous, which is just as well really as that took away from the last novel.

We have two middling romantic scenes in this book so readers looking for sensuality will be sadly bereft.
Finally, her ability to control her characters' accents is still sorely lacking. Her antecdents as a Regency novelist really start to show when all of the typical <i>Ton<i/> slang starts to creep in.

This is an author with a good talent for description who likes complicated plots, enjoys writing about the men, but forgets the <i>women<i/> are the characters female readers tend to empathise with or identify when they are reading romance.
But there is nothing likeable about Bab (Barbara) and one wishes Alex had done better for himself!