JulieYMandKAC

I’m still to this day not sure why, but when I first started reading romance novels I was quite shy and embarrassed about it. The only person who knew that I read ‘such books’ was my husband. I was worried about what people would think! (Silly, I know) To feel a little better about it, I would tell myself that reading paranormal romance books was very different than reading historical romance books. Just look at the covers and how much cooler the paranormal jackets are! lol I even made a pact with myself to try to make me feel better: I promised myself that I would never read a book that had the words Highland or Highlander in the title nor would I ever read a book with a picture of a man in a Kilt on the cover. For some reason, I felt that by abiding by those two rules I would not lump myself in with ‘those crazy women’ who read ‘those kinds of books’.

Well, my silly vow went right out the window lately and I officially became a ‘crazy woman’ because I picked up “Beyond the Highland Mist” by Karen Marie Moning. I LOVE Ms. Moning’s ‘Fever’ series. I have heard that a few of the characters from this, her ‘Highlander’ series, cross over into her ‘Fever’ series. I wanted to see if I could catch them and if maybe there were any hints as to what the hell Barrons is! (I know I won’t because by now someone would have, but still a girl can hope) So that is why I decided to bend my ‘rules’ and pluck the book from my book closet.

Not only is “Beyond the Highland Mist” my first ever book with the word ‘Highland’ in the title and my first ever book with a muscled to perfection dude in a kilt on its cover, it is also my first time travel based book. I must admit that I thought it a bit strange how easily our heroine adapted to being whisked from the 1990’s to the 1500’s. She barely freaks out! I know I would be freaking out, even if I was being smacked around a little. There would be me, freaking out! Adrienne was a fine character. She was well written and I did like her, I just didn’t fall in love with her. Her aversion to falling for beautiful men made me scratch my head sometimes. Okay, so you fell for ONE pretty asshat and now you know they are all pretty asshats!? Get over it! Judge a book by its cover why don’t we!? Now Hawk (he’s called the Hawk, but that’s just weird, so I’m simply calling him Hawk) is a better character in comparison, but his jealousy gets a bit ‘been there, done that’ after a while. He’s a pretty character though, so drooling does ensue while reading this book. I really did enjoy the banter between Adrienne and Hawk. That was cute. Although I thought the assassination sub-plot was rather useless, I did take pleasure in the Lydia and Travis story line. Very sweet.

Overall, I found this simply an interesting read. I don’t believe I will read it again though. But we did meet Grimm in this book and he peaked my interest enough to want to read the next book in the series (which is Grimm’s story). And yes, “To Tame a Highland Warrior” is yet another book with a well-built bloke in a kilt on the cover.