The Highlander's Hope

Highland Heart, Book 1

By: Cali MacKay

Narrated by: Ged Bowie

Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

When Dr. Catriona Ross discovers clues to a long-lost highland treasure, her only hope of finding the jewels is to obtain the help of Scotland's most eligible bachelor and playboy, Iain MacCraigh.

Iain can't believe his luck when he finds out the jewels are hidden away somewhere on his land - and it doesn't hurt that the historian looking for them has curves to go with her smarts. With his brother betting the family fortune, this is the life line he desperately needs.

The odds are against them, and with word getting out about the jewels, they're not the only ones on the hunt. Time's running out, but can they learn to trust each other, or will they lose the jewels and true love in the process?

©2012 Cali MacKay (P)2015 Cali MacKay

Good book

The author did a great job, enjoyed the plot, narrator and it being in the present time period. How the clues where in paintings, that was cool.

Good read, not so good narration..

I really enjoyed this book. I never even skipped a page it was so interesting. It was a great story of a necklace, hidden hundreds of years ago by Iain’s ancestors, and Iain and Cat finding love.

I really liked Iain’s father, Callum, and his friend Angus, but his brother Malcolm was sure a big fat jerk. As was James and MacTavish, though MacTavish was the worst of the two and got what he deserved.

I will probably get the other two book is this one was so good. I had never read Ms. MacKay before but she’s a pretty talented writer.

There was no swearing to speak of and even though there wasn’t ANY sexual tension there were a couple of graphic sex scenes. They were well written but there was nothing that lead up to them. Sex is kind of vanilla if there’s no want, no desire.

As to the narration: He was just OK. He laughed a couple of times and whispered once but there wasn’t much emotion. His voices? The very worst was MacTavish, Mr. Bowie sounded like he held his nose and you couldn’t even pay attention to his Scottish accent because you were so grossed out by his voice. I know he was a bad guy but still… He did Cat’s voice pretty good. I did have to go back about 4 times to figure out what was said his Scottish accent was so thick. You definitely can’t speed up the narration on this book.

And just so you know the book ends at 76%, even though it was 200 pages.

Narration killed the story!

I'm usually in for a mindless, even silly, romance novel and I love Scottish history so I thought I would give The Highlander's Hope by Cali MacKay a shot.

I don't know that I can give the story a fair review because the narrator ruined it for me. I can say with assurance that this story is a mindless and very tame romance novel, so if you're looking for substance and plot development this is not the book for you. I thought at first that the narrator would be at least tolerable (and maybe even enjoyable!!) because of his Scottish accent but when he reads in the voice of the female lead, Cat, his narration becomes unbearable. It took me a while to realize that he was attempting an American accent because all that I heard was a whiny, high-pitched, almost mock imitation of a woman when he spoke her lines, of which there are many in this book.

I might attempt the kindle edition for a quick, easy read but this is not a must-read.