Under Scottish Stars

May 25, 2020
Laureano’s final installment to her MacDonald Family trilogy (after London Tides) centers on newly widowed Serena MacDonald Stewart as she begins life anew with her two kids and a new job. After Serena is forced to withdraw her daughter from prep school in the middle of the spring semester for fighting, she accepts her brothers’ offer to work at the family hotel on the Isle of Skye and put her marketing skills to use. Hotel manager Malcolm Blake is not thrilled with Serena’s overshadowing presence and assumes that she will only get in the way. As Serena fights her instant attraction to him, Malcolm warms up to her and begins to welcome the possibility. Sparks fly as they spend more time together, and though Serena is reluctant to fall in love again, watching Malcolm with her kids and his own adopted teenager, Kylee, makes it easier for her to open up. But when Kylee is accepted into a college in Boston after Malcolm agreed to move with her if she got in, Malcolm and Serena must decide if their love is worth fighting for, and Serena embraces her faith to make a life-changing decision. This emotionally astute tale will appeal to fans of Tamera Alexander.

July 1, 2020

In the long-awaited final volume in the "MacDonald Family Trilogy," Serena Stewart moves back to Skye with her two young children after her oldest is suspended from her prestigious school. The slow pace of life in the Scottish Isles brings to light the cracks in her carefully constructed personal and professional facades, which she plastered over after the death of her husband. As she returns home and tries to take over the running of the family hotel, she butts heads with the handsome and stubborn manager, Malcolm Blake, who was also thrust into single parenthood unexpectedly. Readers will enjoy cameos of favorite people from previous books, along with some new flawed and hopeful characters. VERDICT Laureano (The Saturday Night Supper Club) pens a worthy crossover title concluding this modern romantic trilogy that could also stand alone as a winsome story of community and second chances. Fans of light, contemporary, Christian romance along the lines of Jenny Colgan or Bethany Turner will want to add Laureano to their lists.--Christine Barth, Scott Cty. Lib. Syst., IA

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