Tracy‘s review of Charming the Highlander (Highlander series book 1) by Janet Chapman
When I went to visity Holly recently I had a wonderful time going through all her books and choosing books for review on this site. But then across the room from all of those books were more wonderful books that were Holly’s personal collection. I was in book heaven! Needless to say it took a day and a half to go through all the shelves. Since this book is from Holly’s personal collection we’ll just call this review “From Holly’s Bookshelf”.
A feisty beauty tempted by a bold highlander’s touch…
When a plane crash strands brilliant scientist Grace Sutter on an icy mountaintop in Maine, she finds herself alone in the wilderness with the only other surviving passenger — Greylen MacKeage,a sexy, medieval warrior who’s been tossed through time to find the woman he’s destined to love. Forced together to survive the harsh, wintry landscape, neither expects the fierce passion that flares between them. But Grace is not used to letting her heart take control, and Greylen will settle for nothing less than her heart’s surrender….
Grace Sutter’s sister, Mary, has gotten in a car accident and she’s on the brink of death. Mary was 8 months pregnant at the time but after an emergency c-section the baby is safe. But before Mary dies she tells Grace some strange things about the baby’s father…like he told her he was from 800 years in the past and 4 years ago got sent to the 21st century while in a lightning storm. Then Mary makes Grace promise that she’ll take the baby to his father. Needless to say after Mary’s death Grace isn’t racing to the baby’s father to drop him off since obviously he has some screws loose.
After a month of playing mom Grace is ready to head to Maine, the state where she grew up and the state that Mary lived in, and check things out with the father of Baby. (Since Mary had said that the baby should be named by his father Grace just calls him Baby.) Grace packs everything up and leaves Virginia by plane…but she has to make 3 connections which sucks. On the last connection she is flying in a very small plane with Greylen McKeage, who’s also flying home to Maine. The plane goes up in the air, even though there’s an ice storm and unfortunately the pilot isn’t as good a pilot as he said and the plane crashes. Grey, Grace & Baby get off the mountain but that doesn’t end the attraction and bond that Grey and Grace are feeling.
On top of the ice storm that doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon Grace is dealing with her sister’s death and her feelings about handing over Baby to his father. And if that isn’t enough then there’s Grace’s boss from Virginia who turns up with extremely horrifying news. You see Grace is a rocket scientist and has recently put a pod up in space. The information that she is gleaning from that pod is now not only her information, but her boss pretty much sold it. He says there are people coming to kidnap her since the info coming from the pod is garbled and she’s the only one that can fix it. I know it sounds incredibly far-fetched but it works for the most part. I mean, it’s as time travel romance people, come one! lol
This book has a lot of different things going on it. First there was Grace dealing with Mary’s death, then dealing with Baby, almost dying in a place crash, coming to terms with her attraction to Grey and all that entailed including finding out he’s from 800 years in the past, facing her boss & his sliminess, getting kidnapped..and I think there’s more but I can’t think of it right now. While the book was good I needed things to be wrapped up at about page 300-325 (it’s 374 pages).
I did finish reading it and it had a good ending but I think that there were some story lines completely left unfinished. One of those that I can’t stop wondering about is Grace’s boss. Grace and her boss get kidnapped and (without giving something away) the kidnappers and the boss disappear. Nothing’s spoken of them again. Grace’s work isn’t mentioned at all after that which I found odd since wouldn’t people be looking for her boss and the others? And if the people who wanted Grace kidnapped wanted her so badly, wouldn’t they send someone else to get the job done? It was just like after the scheme was thwarted the entire problem just disappeared. It was just too pat for my liking.
As for Grey and Grace…I thought they had a very cute relationship. For all his Alpha ways Grey became a big softy – well not really, but he did realize that sometimes women have very good ideas and they are worth listening to. Grace did get on my nerves a bit when she wouldn’t hand Baby over to his father but I did understand her thinking to a point. Even with my annoyance with her I found the romance quite charming.
This was a cute book that had some really great parts to it, and some not so great ones. I think that anyone who enjoys time travel, or a good alpha male will enjoy this story.
Rating: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Pocket. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
LOL, I’ve seen this book around and I thought it was medieval based on the title. Oups! Might need to give this one a try, although I feel a bit meh about time travel… hmmm.
Now, for me the telling question would be: was the book good enough for you to want to read more in this series?
I’ve had this book on my tbb list for a while, but just haven’t gotten around to getting it yet.
Wena – Is your library that big that you can’t find it any longer? lol
Nath – I thought it was at first too. It starts off that way but very quickly moves to the 21st century. Time travel is a tricky one. This seems to have been done well although I think the men adjusted to modern living really fast.
Renee – Kind of? lol I’m not sure. Although it seems that this hero was the most mordern of the clan that was transported. I’m a little curious to see how the other men handle 21st century women…being from the 13th century and all.
I’ve had this book in my TBR pile for YEARS and still I haven’t read it. I’m beginning to wonder why.
Hmm.
LOL, Tracy. I read this book. I agree with your take. Last year sometime, I was sick and my daughter loaned me the original trilogy. I read them… (I think there are more?)
I found them to be fun and entertaining. I liked that they were set in contemporary times. I seem to remember liking the last book best.
Oh yeah, I remember this book! This was the one that started my glom of Janet Chapmann. I really like her writing style. The characters aren’t perfect by any means and sometimes they do stuff that gets on your nerves, but they are vastly entertaining (for me anyway).
Hilcia – did you like the first 3? What was your take on them?
Jill – Vastly entertaining is a great way to put it. There wasn’t a dull moment in the story, that’s for sure. 🙂
Tracy, I remember enjoying the books more than I expected to. I agree with your take on this one. Especially on Grace, the boss,etc…
The 2nd and 3rd books expand on the overall story. I do remember liking the last book more than the other two.
I read all three, one after the other and yes, entertaining is the perfect word for these books, IMHO. 🙂
Thanks for the info Hilcia. I’ll have to keep it in mind when I go back to Holly’s books. 🙂
I don’t know, to me, the most interesting part of a time travel book is to see how they adjust to the time period. That’s the attraction no? Hmmm, i found a couple of Lynn Kurland in Ontario… I think I’m going to read those instead 😛
Nath – I only read one Lynn Kurland, Stardust of Yesterday, but I did really enjoy it. Kurland is a good choice.
Nath – I loved the one Kurland that I read (her most recent release) that was time travel. If I had to choose between the two I’d say Kurland.
I was reading Ms. Chapman books as they came out! So reading this review its great to remember about their story! I’m just a couple behind in buying of hers now but she’s one that I love the feel of her reads and her characters, light with that adventure, especially the time travel theme and fun.