Highland Guardian by Melissa Mayhue

Highland Guardian
(Daughters of the Glen Series Book #2)
by Melissa Mayhue

Genre: Paranormal Romance | Fantasy

SARAH DOUGLAS is a successful thirty-eight year old romance novelist with big problems. She's come to Scotland on a three month working vacation hoping to recapture her muse - who's deserted her - and resolve the issue of her strange 'feelings' - the ones which allow her to sense the emotions of everyone she touches.

From the moment she arrives, however, her problems only intensify. She's being stalked, but by whom? Is he real or only a figment of her imagination? What about the darkly handsome owner of the cottage she's leasing? How is she ever going to deal with her growing attraction to a man ten years her junior? She knows from bitter experience men - particularly men who look like Ian - aren't interested in women like her.

IAN MCCULLOUGH is neck-deep in troubles of his own. As a half-mortal descendent of Faeries, he's a Guardian, sworn to protect both the mortals of this world and the Portals leading to the Faerie Realm. After six hundred years, he's confident he knows what to expect in just about every situation and exactly how to handle it. But he never counted on a woman like Sarah showing up in his life; a woman who intrigues and charms him. A woman who turns out to be of Faerie descent herself, although she has no idea of her heritage and no belief in any Otherworld beings.

When he's assigned to protect her, Ian finds the job is tougher than he could possibly have imagined. Oh, he can handle the stalker and the ex-husband and even the renegade Faeries trying to kidnap her for their own purpose. It's falling in love and forsaking his status as Guardian, a position he swore to honor at his father's deathbed, he's having trouble with.

Both Sarah and Ian struggle to battle the demons of self-doubt and their individual pasts. In the process they learn that healing will take the strongest magic of all, the true love that occurs only between two souls fated to be together.

Sarah escapes to Scotland to stimulate her muse and get back into writing her books, she chooses to ignore the fact that something else is drawing her there as well. Ian doesn't have the time to be bothered being babysitter to the new "American" arrival at his friend's summer cottage, but upon their first meeting - things drastically change. Now Ian is torn between duty and love while Sarah must make some startling acceptances herself before the Fairy portal is revealed and all ciaos ensues.

I like this series! It's easy to read, fun and sassy, plus the characters are enjoyable overall. Ian and Sarah were very realistic and their relationship together just kept getting better and better. The story wasn't cheesy and their romance didn't feel rushed and/or pushed as many similar tales can be. Don't expect a lot of in-depth story development, but if you want something to read after a long day at work - this is a great series to get into. The author opened up the character field a lot within Highland Guardian, so many of the future books in the series can really go all over the place now - which excites me since Soul of the Highlander is up next in my TBR pile. Plus, it was nice to get a glimpse of Cate and Conner from the first book in the series.

Likes: Yayy! Scotland - I'm all about books set in Scotland since my trip there is in 42 days and counting . . .

Dislikes: The whole plot build up toward the end kind of fizzled out for me and wasn't as climatic as I would have liked. Plus, I'm noticing a similar trait within the female characters that I'm not enjoying - the two female protagonists so far both suffer from horrible past relationships that weakened them until meeting their new Highland male dream dudes (who of course save them from their pity party), but I like my women characters to be strong individually and not broken/shattered emotionally as Mayhue is writing them. I'm hoping that trait changes here on out for the Daughters of the Glen series.

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