Scottish romances are one of my guilty pleasures. Though most I’ve read contain truly inaccurate views of history, there is just something about the place that draws me anyway. Though this novel has some significant weaknesses, the author does a wonderful job of conjuring up a magical setting, though the novel is also at times painfully slow.

Together with his brothers, Julian Challon is sent into Scotland by England’s King Edward I in order to marry and subdue the daughters of a Scotsman held captive by the King. The daughters hold their land in their own name, a notion which the English king finds dangerous. When Julian arrives in Glenrogha, he find women more spirited than he expected – and in Tamlyn MacShane, he finds a woman who intrigues him more than he believed possible.

To say that Tamlyn is displeased to find herself Julian’s captive would be an understatement, yet she manages not to be the dreaded “feisty” heroine. There are no outlandish escape plots and very few of the dreaded, drawn-out “I love you I hate you” exchanges. Most of the time, Tamlyn tries to make the best of her life, while accepting that to overthrow the English is not in her power. As she spends more time around Julian, she starts to see that he is an honorable man and that he does care about Glenrogha.

One of the strengths of this story lies in the fact that it is written in a style reminiscent of the meaty historical sagas of past years. The story takes place in the year leading up to William Wallace’s uprising and historical detail of the time is woven gracefully into the story. MacGillivray uses history to create a place and anchor her story in time without ever lecturing the reader. While there are some anachronisms, this is not mere wallpaper.

The bulk of the story centers on Julian and Tamlyn, but there are other major characters in the novel as well. After reading this book, I felt as though I had visited an entire world. Too many books seem to be built on the assumption that a couple falling in love exists alone in a vacuum and it is refreshing to find a book in which other people besides the leads actually play significant roles. The leads were intriguing, but I also enjoyed being able to have some small window into the world that surrounded them.

While the book has its definite strengths, it also contains weaknesses jarring enough that it rendered the novel very slow moving at times. For starters, while the author does a good job of working historical detail into her story, she is not nearly so successful in her bid to work all manner of faux-Celtic mysticism and bits of the paranormal into the book. From the beginning, readers are told (and reminded again and again) that Tamlyn and various others in Glenrogha are blessed with “the kenning”. Indeed, people are forever kenning this and that about the future and the author’s treatment of this idea is rather heavyhanded, often jarring readers right out of what is otherwise a most pleasant read.

On top of having people kenning things all over the place, the Scottish characters also participate in all manner of supposed ancient and pagan rituals. Their beliefs are often glossed over, as is their effect on the presumably Christian English characters in the story. This lends the Scottish character’s mysticism a touch of silliness that doesn’t add to the story.

If these problems were not irritating enough, this author also makes some unfortunate choices in naming her characters. While some have more conventional names, the Scottish contingent for this romance is pretty much brought to the reader by the letters “y” and “n” as we suffer through names such as Tamlyn, Rowanne, Evelynour and – I’m not making this up – Paganne. Still, even with these jarring moments, MacGillivray tells a good story. If she either turns her hand to straight historicals or learns to work elements of the mystical or paranormal more subtly into her stories, her work has the potential to bring good stories and much-needed variety to the historical romance market.