seriously romantic: the highlander who loved me by tara kingston

unlike the darkest london series, the highland hearts series does not deal with things that go bump in the night. at the very least there are no werewolves or vampires or demons to worry about. but in the highlander who loved me there are thieves and murderers and evil kidnap pets who will think nothing of cutting short the lives of innocents. johanna templeton is desperate to save her niece, who has been taken and is being held hostage in exchange for a rare first edition copy of frankenstein.

but the ransom demand isn't actually about the rare book. it's about finding the map to the demon's heart, a rare ruby linked to the macmasters family. the ruby is said to have rare powers that lead to unpleasantness, and the macmasters family has been charged with protecting and recovering these old scottish artifacts. so when connor macmasters saves johanna at the first encounter she has with the kidnapper's henchmen, she isn't sure whether she should be grateful or upset that she's a pawn in someone else's games.

it takes her a while to trust connor, and this was actually something i found challenging in the novel, because he kept telling her he was trustworthy, and really nothing he did countered what he was telling her, but somehow she couldn't believe him. and i think maybe there was more backstory with being misled by the men in her life too many times before, but i feel like some of this was edited out of the novel. and i'm not saying that wasn't a bad thing, because i feel like the novel mostly worked as written, it's just that johanna's level of distrust didn't seem to be fair to connor.

he was also just a super likable hero, so maybe this also made it difficult to understand johanna's reticence. but this was a great introduction to the series. the macmasters we do meet are all charming and aching for stories of their own. so there is a lot more exploring of this world that can happen.

**the highlander who loved me will publish on december 12, 2016. i received an advance copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publishing (select historical) in exchange for my honest review.