Lots of mean people
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Spoilers! Enter at your own risk!
Seduced by a Scot is the sixth book in the Highland Grooms series and I wish I could say I
liked it. The story started off on a high note, but by the second chapter I started to hear rumblings of disenchantment in my little brain. Sometimes a book works and sometimes it doesn't. For me, this book didn’t work and here’s why – mean people.Our heroine is Maura Darby. She is beautiful beyond words. She attracts men like flies to honey. She is the ward of Calum Garrett.
Mean People House I. Let's see who inhabits this house. The mean characters here all seem to be women - so much for sisterhood. We have horrible Mrs. Garrett, jealous Sorcha Garrett, and the wife of a maybe future business-partner, the pretentious Mrs. Cadell. Mrs. Cadell is the mother of the weak weasel Adam Cadell who happens to be Sorcha's fiancé. That is until Adam kisses Maura - then the household erupts into chaos. Everyone blames the beautiful-beyond-words Maura. The women screech, yell, berate, and bully everyone in the household. Everything is allllll Maura's fault. The women insist that Maura depart and since Mr. Garrett has no backbone Maura is dumped on Garrett's distant cousin - David Rumpkin.
A ponder moment. The fact that Ms. Darby is beautiful beyond words is of course allllll her fault. She is loathed by almost all of the other female characters in this story. Sorcha is portrayed as homely; she is described as having a bulbous nose and slightly crooked eyes. Is it any wonder that all the men flock to lovely black-haired Maura instead of the big nose Sorcha? This particular narrative was all in the beginning of the book, and it was at this point I started to have an issue with the story. Do you know why I started to have issues? Because my itty-bitty brain started talking to me about our perceptions about what we value. Why is it that we have a problem with women who are not attractive being the heroine? Even when heroines are plain, there is usually a scene written in which all of a sudden in the moonlight they become beautiful or the sun captures the golden highlights of the hair or their gray eyes turn to sparkling diamonds. Why does the inside of a person have to match the outside? What's wrong with having a large nose? Why are a large nose and crooked eyes cliches for mean-spirited? Why shouldn't Sorcha and Maura have bonded when they were younger? Why did they have to be enemies? I am growing impatient with the use of physical appearance as an apparatus used to indicate good and evil. The times, they are a changin’ and it’s time our narratives quit encouraging this mind-set. Is physical beauty alllll that we value? I’m done with my pondering.
Back to the story - Mean House I. Maura is no longer around, but Sorcha has broken with her weasel boyfriend. Every one should be happy, right? Nah. Now the business deal between the Garrett's and the Cadell's may be in trouble. It's time for a "fixer." Enter Nicol Bain – our hero.
For those of you who may not know it, Nicol has fixed problems in previous books and now it’s time for his story. He is here to fix the engagement problem, but mostly he’s going to fix the problem of what to do with Maura. Wellllll, Nicol is a pretty good fixer. It isn’t long before Sorcha and her weasel of a fiancé are on again. Nicol of course has a Romanceland plan. Through some convoluted reasoning, he decides that the best solution is to gather Maura, take her nto the wilderness of Scotland and marry her to a guy by the name of Dunnan Cockburn – yes Cockburn.
Mean House II. David Rumpkin, the cousin. We now jump to the second nasty person portion of the book. When Nicol arrives at Rumpkin’s house to pick up Maura he finds her locked in a bedroom. It seems that David Rumpkin is a mean drunk and has already made advances toward Maura. Which is why she is locked in the room and not eating. She refuses to talk to Nicol, so he breaks into her bedroom. Eventually, Nicol, Maura and Gavin (his groom) escape. Sort of.
Return to Mean House I. The, I-must-have-my-necklace scene. When Maura was forced out of the Garrett household, she had to leave without most of her property, including an heirloom necklace. Before Maura can be trudged off to the highlands they must go back to the Garrett’s house to get her necklace. Maura does not trust Nicol to help her. Maura now turns into a TSTL heroine and tries to escape Nicol by stealing one of Nicol’s two horses. This means that Nicol must send Gavin to a Baron McBain - because as we all know, Nicol and Gavin can’t ride a horse double. By the way, Baron McBain is Nicol’s brother. Nicol, our hero, jumps on the horse telling Gavin he will need to walk to McBain’s estate. Yes, walk. Gavin will walk through unfamiliar territory, to the estate of a man he doesn’t know, and tell him he needs to stay with him till Nicol returns. Did I mention that McBain is estranged from his brother? That means they don't like each other. So, Gavin is being sent into a situation which might turn disagreeable. But don’t worry my little Petunia’s, Nicol gives Gavin some last minute instructions on how to load and shoot a gun. Did I happen to mention that Gavin is fourteen years old?
Mean House I continued. Maura is headed back to get her necklace, Nicol is in pursuit of Maura, and a fourteen year-old Gavin is trying not to get lost in the wilderness. Nicol finds Maura, they go back, they get the necklace, and they leave and head north. Just so ya’ know, I left out a lot of things involved in the return of the necklace plot-line. Once Maura has her necklace, we have a road-trip romance as Maura and Nicol go north so she can marry Cockburn. But first they must pick up Gavin.
Mean House III - Ivan McBain. Another nasty person, this time of the male gender. Ivan McBain is Nicol’s brother. He is married and all through this part of the story he continually tells his wife to shut up. I don’t know why he’s such a rotten person, but he’s a rotten to the core. Then Nicol’s horrible father makes an entrance into the story. He’s on his deathbed. Of course, we discover that Nicol’s father really isn’t his father at all. This makes Nicol blue. To comfort Nicol, Maura and he have a session of hickory-dickory-dock. Then it’s off to the highlands to deliver Maura to her intended.
Mean House IV - the abode of Dunnan Cockburn, the intended. Maura’s intended has a gambling problem. He’s also odd. He also has a mean, domineering mother. When Maura and Nicol arrive, Dunnan’s having a party, and he’s invited a theater troupe. OMG, a theatre group! By this time, I just wanted the story to be over – but no. Maura’s intended, Dunnan Cockburn is just plain odd. He does strange things and it’s never fully explained as to what makes him tick. It is at this time that Maura decides she will join the theater troupe and act. Yep, she’s going to be a star! As I mentioned before Cockburn has a gambling problem. He owes a lot of money. Enter the man he owes the money to, Mr. Pepper. Mr. Pepper is not a happy camper, and it’s not because he’s named after a beverage. He wants his money and he wants it now! Somehow into this mix, Nicol becomes a hostage and Maura eventually saves him. Nicol, Maura, and Gavin all have their HEA. It was all very tangled, and disjointed.
To say I was disappointed in this book would be an understatement. There were just so many plot-lines piled on top of each other. I became dizzy just trying to sort them all out. All the different narratives did not transition smoothly. It is possible to have lots of twists and turns in books and still have a cohesive tale. There were just tooooo many mean people. The story eventually became farcical – and not in a good way. This story was loaded with waaaay too many unpleasant characters - it was all very depressing. Even the HEA couldn't save this story for me.
Time/Place: Scottish road trip 1750s
Sensuality: Warm
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