Another tent sale.
http://www.suzanneenoch.com/
I knew there would be brogue in Some Like it Scot by Suzanne Enoch, and I just came out of a Jennifer Ashley book. This one is even thicker than Ms. Ashley's story. (By the way,
another irritating title, which also happens to have been used in 2010 by Donna Kaufman.) So, the title is not only irritating but there is a bit of lazy publishing going on. Back to the Some Like it Scot by Suzanne Enoch, the historical romance, not the contemporary romance. Once again we visit the MacLawry family and this time it's Munro's turn. Just so ye know, Munro goes by the name of Bear. In Romanceland that means he's big - big everywhere, if ye get me drift. Although that doesn't seemed to have stopped him from delving into a many burrows. He has a lot of female fans.
I believe this may be the last in the series. Why do I say that? Well, because alllll of the MacLawry's are there and they are allll trying to control Bear. They are trying to push him into a loving matrimony; they want what's best for him and they really don't care what he wants. What he wants is to be left alone and not have to watch his family members' cadoodle-hoo with their spouses and their drooling children. One day he can no longer stand it; he needs to get away from his family, so he goes hunting. While he has the deer in sight, another hunter shoots first. Bear is just a little peeved. He’s the best hunter in the whole world - no one can outshoot him. Of course, there is also the matter of someone trespassing on MacLawry’s land. What’s a fella to do? He must follow the thin young lad. What ho! A thin young lad in a romance book! What could that mean? Enter Catriona.
It doesn't take him long to discover the lad is actually a lassie. Contrary to what his family believes, he's no Hoss Cartwright (for those of you too young, Google on Bonanza.) Both Catriona and Bear are self-sufficient; in fact one might say that Catriona could be Daniel Boone or Annie Oakley as portrayed by Betty Hutton (again fer ye young whipper-snappers, Goggle: Annie Get Your Gun.) Catriona is a little rough around the edges. Why is that, you may ask? Her whacky daddy wanted a boy and he raised her as such. Because of the way she has been raised, she thinks she stinks as a woman and this is one of the reasons she's hiding out in a rundown abbey. She's also hiding her half-sister, a citified lass who has run away from her elderly fiancé. Bear does not see the other sister right away, he thinks it is only Catriona. Is that important to the plot? Not really. Bear is a helper, he’s always bringing back things, collecting broken animals and such. (Except for the deer he was hunting.) He wants to help Catriona - but, she is having no part of him and chases him away with a gun. Now, Bear is really really interested in feisty Catriona. It isn't long before his kilt is tented. He doesn't understand his attraction to Catriona, it must be the pants she's wearing because it's certainly not her personality.
Bear and Catriona could have been a cute couple if not for a few nagging things and this has to do mainly with Catriona. After a while her constant berating of herself gets tiring. Her father wanted a son and she wears pants and stomps and tramps and hunts and spits and people make fun of her because she dresses like a man and no manly-man could eveeerr look at her as a woman, even with all of her two long legs and shapely hips, she's just so ugly, she's not a woman, blah blah blah. Pulease have you ever looked into a mirror? I'm also not going to tell what she's running away from, but when we get the big reveal in the story I thought it was so silly; I may have even groaned.
Bear was the best of the characters in this book and I really liked his pushy, gruff behavior - his cave-man attitude. What grated big-time in this book were the secondary characters - the clan MacLawry, especially the eldest brother, Ranulf. Ranulf was so over-bearing and downright mean toward Bear I had to go back and read my review on his story. Turns out I loved his story. It's really too bad that Ranulf comes off looking like a big ole pile of shite because he made a great hero in his own book. For the most part the MacLawry's appear to be a mean spirited bunch of connivers who have forgotten their own love stories. All of their sensibilities seem to have vanished in Secondary Character Land. I couldn't understand how they could have been hero/heroine material in their own books and then turned into wire-hanger people in this one (Google Mommie Dearest).
Along with the tent sale that was going on in this book, the story was also thick with Scottish brogue - and as I said earlier, thicker than Jennifer Ashley's book. And, that's quite a lot. It was so heavy at times I had to reread some of the sentences to catch the meaning. A bit of overkill on the brogue.
Overall, this was an ok read. Bear was a great character. He was deserving of a better heroine and a better story. Catriona could have been better if she had quit the I’m-a-ugly-woman-no-one-likes-me-guess-I'll-go-eat-worms routine. The secrets of both girls were more of a silly distraction than anything else. But the real problem for me and what made my rating plummet, was Bear's obnoxious family and his horrible brother, Ranulf, a fun hero turned mean.
Time/Place: 1800s Scotland
Sensuality: Hot
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