Pocket, $6.99, ISBN 978-1-4165-2503-5
Historical Romance, 2007
How to Abduct a Highland Lord is one of those historical romances with a plot that makes no sense. In fact, the main characters are very lucky that the story ends up with a happy ending because wars have been started in the past from stupid stunts such as the one that heroine Fiona MacLean pulls in this story.
The MacLeans are cursed in a way that when they are angry, storms break up and everyone’s life becomes messed-up when these storms destroy things and all. A dark storm of all storms is literally rumbling when Fiona decides that the only way to stop the latest drama between her family and the Kincaid clan is to marry a Kincaid. You see, a MacLean has been killed by a Kincaid and now Fiona’s brothers want blood. So Fiona is going to marry Jack Kincaid. After all, her brothers won’t kill any Kincaid now that everyone’s a big family, no?
So, with the pretense of him having impregnated her, Fiona drags a drunk Jack to the altar. This makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m sure the enraged MacLean men, already boiling with rage over the death of a family member, will put aside their negative emotions and embrace the zen of tranquility or something when they hear that their sister has been knocked up by a Kincaid and is forced to marry him. Jack, when he realizes what he’s been dragged into, decides to drag Fiona to London immediately. That makes sense too. Such a move will reassure the angry Kincaid men that their sister is in fine hands now! The man rushes their sister to London ASAP – that means he has nothing to hide from the MacLeans, right?
And in London, the family saga takes a backseat to Evil Other Women and Bad Villain drama. Fiona also wants to reform Jack while Jack wants to be free and all. It’s not very interesting, this drama. It soon turns out that the MacLean men are surprisingly fine with their sister’s abrupt marriage, which makes Fiona come off like a complete bird-brain for pulling off the stunt in the first place. Fiona and Jack have some humorous moments – this is a Karen Hawkins story after all – but on the whole they are not enough to save this story from its hopelessly muddled excuse of a plot and the overabundance of clichéd padded subplots.
How to Abduct a Highland Lord has more holes in its plot than a moon made out of cheese and feels more padded than a bag of chips. This is probably not how a Karen Hawkins book should be.
