A Buchanan brother finds a love to treasure in this scintillating historical romance from New York Times bestselling author Lynsay Sands...
HIGHLAND TREASURE by LYNSAY SANDS
Series: Highland Brides #9
Publication date: January 26, 2021
Published by: Avon
Genre: historical romance
SYNOPSIS
After escaping from the English soldiers who attacked her home and imprisoned her in a dungeon, Lady Elysande de Valance is grateful for the rugged Scots who are escorting her to safety in the Highlands. Even with danger dogging their every step, she hadn’t expected to welcome the strong comforting embrace of their leader, Rory Buchanan. They say he’s a healer, but she finds the heat of his touch does so much more...
Let his brothers get married—Rory is too busy tending to the sick to be bothered with wooing a bride. But when he is tasked with accompanying a family friend’s “treasure” to the Highlands, he is surprised to learn the treasure is a beautiful woman on the run—and even more surprised to discover bruises hidden by her veil. Rory makes it his mission to tend to her injuries and protect her, but the thought of losing her makes him realize that perhaps it is his heart that is most in need of healing…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LYNSAY SANDS is the nationally bestselling author who is known for her hysterical historicals as well as the popular Argeneau/Rogue Hunter vampire series. With her witty and charming personality, Sands describes books as, “Waking dreams or stories, tales to amuse, entertain and distract us from everyday life.” She’s been writing stories since grade school and considers herself incredibly lucky to be able to make a career out of it. Her hope is that readers can get away from their everyday stress through her stories, and if there are occasional uncontrollable fits of laughter, that’s just a big bonus.
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Highland Treasure by Lynsay SandsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Even though this is my first read out of the nine installments in the Highland Brides series, I had no issues with confusion over characters or events. To anyone wondering if this book stands on its own or if there's any piece of storyline that carries over from previous books, you're free to one-click now. I give the author credit for not overwhelming the reader with the large amounts of past characters and solely focusing on the two main characters: Lady Elysande de Valance and Rory Buchanan.
Rory Buchanan is the "healer" of the Highland brothers and is one of the last single men standing. His family has been shamelessly trying to put an end to his bachelorhood by finding eligible women for him, but he has no plans to pursue anyone. He's perfectly happy focusing on his patients and his goal to build his own castle in the near future. After his latest job in caring for Baron Monmouth in England, he's financially set to start making preparations to build. First, he needs to make a quick stop on his way home to Scotland and collect a "treasure" and deliver it to a family friend. He had no idea at the time that this treasure would be a woman who is running for her life and racing against the clock to save the King of England.
Lady Elysande has just survived a family massacre, a brutal beating, and the loss of everything she's ever known. Aided by loyal servants and two knights who survived, she manages to make a narrow escape with information of a treasonous plot to assassinate the King. Elysande shows strength of will and steel determination every step of the way. In my opinion, perhaps a little too unrealistically. We never really see her grieve or suffer much trauma from the harrowing experience that would break even the strongest of individuals-man or woman. She stoically sits on the saddle for days on end while rarely even letting a wince show on her face. There is no breakdown-physical or mental. I'm all for strong female leads, but this is stretching believability a tad thin if I'm being honest. In the beginning, she shows superhuman strength by hiding her pain from her escorts. After her secret is outed, we are given scene after scene where she must replenish the dreaded liniment on her back.
The time devoted to talking about the liniment that she makes and plasters on her back multiple times throughout the day started to bother me. I looked it up. There were 80 mentions of it in the book. After proving how strong she is, we switch to how very badly she needs the numbing cream to get through the day and night. The repetitiveness was a problem. It wasn't just in this one area, but the book as a whole that I felt was leaning towards repetitive. The entire journey that they were on consisted of a laundry list of tasks like: wake up, eat, apply liniment, travel, make camp and sleep, repeat. There was one scene where some conflict and suspense finally happened, but there really wasn't a strong sense of danger.
The romance between Elysande and Rory was based more on physical attraction and his respect for her strength. I liked that they were both healers and when they married would be equals in the medical trade, however I never really saw them develop a natural emotional attachment. Not to say that they didn't make a nice couple, but their story was lacking depth and development. The ending was somewhat anticlimactic in that there wasn't a big showdown with the perpetrator of the assassination plot. I was hoping for some real action to round out the story, but everything wrapped up smoothly without much tension. Having said all that, this wasn't a bad read if you're looking for a light and easy historical romance similar to the writing style of classic Julie Garwood. While it didn't wow me, it was a sweet story with a writing style that I could engage with.
You are a man worthy of love.” Tilting her head, she added, “People may need a healer, but they do not love them. They love the man.
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