3 ⭐️

”I’m the most fortunate of women. I have the most wonderful husband, a beautiful home, amazing friends and a loving family.”
RECORD SCRATCH
“most wonderful husband…” wait- what?

I started listening to this audio book as a way to entertain myself on my morning walk, and let me tell you, I almost didn’t finish it. The only reason it was completed was cause I’d always forget to download another audio book by the time the next morning came around 😭 The book does have some pay off though, sort of.

The concept of the book interested me. We have Joan: disguising herself as a boy to go deliver a message from her dead mother to the McKay’s in Scotland, and Cam: the heir to the Sinclair clan and laird, finds Joan on her travels getting beaten by bandits, swooping in to save the day, leaving the two to continue their travels to Scotland together.

Unfortunately this concept quickly falls flat as Joan is revealed to be a woman pretty early on and Cam decides to have sex with her the next night of knowing she’s a woman. The pacing for the beginning is honestly quite rushed in my opinion. I’d like to have seen more build up between them before the reveal of Joan being a woman and before the two of them had sex for the first time. 

The time in between from where Joan and Cam first have sex to when they get to Sinclair is mostly forgettable. They go to a tavern and get married at the McKay estate. 

Something that saved this book from me ditching it completely was the “mystery” elements of it.

i.e. what was written in the scroll, and who’s responsible for all the accidents Joan has once she gets to Sinclair. Although the culprit for the murder(s) was quite obvious to me after a certain character’s death, it brought something enjoyable to the table. 

This book also suffers “tell not show” in regards to Joan and Cam’s relationship growth. We don’t get much from them other than exposition and sex and they barely talk once they’ve reached Sinclair. Flash forwarding to the epilogue and we hear that Cam’s selfless and loving and kind and always doing little things for Joan. Where was that in most of the story?

The narration is really well done. Kieran Elliott brought a lot of life and fun into this story and it was worth listening for him alone. I laughed out loud at a few parts due to his delivery. 

All in all this book was okay. I’m not sure how I would have fared if I was trying to read this as print or an ebook rather than an audio book but what’s done is done.