Book Review: Tempted By The Highland Warrior by Michelle Willingham

Title: Tempted by the Highland Warrior (MacKinloch Clan #3)

Author: Michelle Willingham
Release Date: June 19th 2012
Publisher: Harlequin
Imprint: Harlequin Historical
Source: Received from the publisher via NetGalley

After years of brutal torture, Callum MacKinloch is finally free of his captors--but his voice is still held prisoner. He'd never let anyone hear him scream.Although Lady Marguerite de Montpierre's chains may be invisible, they threaten to tie her to a loveless and cruel marriage.

When Marguerite discovers Callum waiting to die, her heart aches for the warrior beneath the suffering--but they can have no future. Yet she is the one woman with the power to tame the rage locked inside him. Maybe he can find another reason to live...for her.

My Thoughts

Although not the best story involving Highlanders that I have ever read, it was still an okay read.

I didn't really connect with the characters at all. 

I liked them, but I didn't care for them, and there wasn't really anything that overly distinguished them as Highlanders other than being told they were. The author could of told me they were outback Australians and I wouldn't have known the difference. 

I just didn't think there was any consistency or genuine Scottish traits in the character descriptions or dialogue that categorically defined them as Highlanders. I definitely missed all the usual Scottish accenting and phrases that would have helped convince me of their ethnicity, and heated things up for the reader - as there really is nothing better than a well placed Gaelic term of endearment!

The story itself was nice-ish. 

I liked the mute-by-trauma element that Callum had, but in the end his muteness was resolved a little too smoothly and easily for me and the heroine's reaction to him regaining his speech was very one dimensional "Oh, you spoke, you've regained your speech - how nice" (not a direct quote but you get the idea)

Overall I liked the story but I found the world building, the characters, and the general narrative to be weak and a little boring, only 2 1/2 Stars :|