How to Train your Highlander

October 31, 2016
English’s charming third installment in her early 19th-century Broadswords and Ballrooms series (after How to Wed a Warrior) pairs up a hoydenish young Scottish woman and a proper English duke. Mary Elizabeth Waters’s family wants her to marry, but she is determined to travel back to Scotland from London to live out her days as a spinster. That determination wavers when she meets the handsome Harold “Harry” Charles Percy, Duke of Northumberland, after arriving at his rural estate. The attraction between the pair is mesmerizing from the start, even though Harry doesn’t correct Mary Elizabeth’s assumption that he is just a stable hand. Mary Elizabeth’s effervescent personality and her lust for life are refreshing given her era’s expectations of highborn women. The fast-paced story and the humorous and sensual love scenes make up for some lack of character development.