Romance novels, by their very nature, are prone to repetition. There are certain conventions, like the HEA ending, the London Season, and the arranged marriage, that you see again and again. It’s a joy to find a novel that uses these conventions in a fresh and interesting way. Regrettably, Highland Spirits is not one of those novels.

Michael Kintyre, Earl of Mingary, and his sister Bridget, are noble but broke. They need to marry money in order to pay off their father’s debts. Charles and Penelope MacCrighton (who, in the book’s only surge of originality, are nicknamed Chuff and Pinkie) are rich, but their father was a bit mad so they cannot expect to marry well. What could be more inevitable than a union between these two families?

Michael is determined that his sister, Bridget, should marry Chuff, and encourages her to engage his affection. In his defense, I will say that he is deeply in debt, but as Bridget is only sixteen, it’s hard to respect him for this. Michael is attracted to Pinkie but refuses to consider marrying her, because he would not taint the Mingary bloodline by marrying an unsuitable woman (but it’s okay if his sister marries her brother. Make sense?). Chuff evades Bridget, while Michael’s attraction to the unsuitable Pinkie grows.

If you think this sounds like an exciting read, you’re wrong. It’s regretably dull. For about the first hundred pages, nothing happens. Oh, there’s the journey to London, the opening of townhouses, the dinner parties, the expeditions to Hyde Park, the opera, and the theater, the dancing at Almack’s, and on and on and on. Pinkie and Michael don’t even meet until page sixty-five, and even this event is not very spine-tingling: he bumps into her, she says “Pray, forgive us,” and he goes on his way. Later he turns the pages for her while she plays the pianoforte. I wanted to shout, “Will you people do something?!” These are Highlanders, after all – couldn’t they occupy themselves with something other than this tired old routine?

At about the halfway point, things do pick up somewhat, but we’re still on a very well-worn path. Michael agrees to marry Pinkie, but not before making it clear that he’s only marrying her for her money. She doesn’t tell him her Big Secret, which has not been a secret to any of us, including Michael, since the first pages of the book. Then the villain of the piece abducts Michael’s sister and spirits her away to Scotland, with Pinkie in hot pursuit, and Michael himself not far behind.

Highland Spirits is very well researched and is not poorly written. Much of the historical information is interesting, but the manner in which the characters informed one another of historical details in conversation, as though they weren’t all perfectly cognizant of what happened to whom on Culloden Field, was annoying. Between that and the many characters from the three previous books in this series that were impossible to keep straight, the reader is pulled out of the narrative far too often.

But the greatest flaw in this book is the limited character development. We are told things about Michael that he contradicts by his thoughts and actions. For instance, he says that he will not consider tainting his bloodline by marrying Pinkie; later he says, “I never cared a whit about who your parents were.” If you say so, Mike. His behavior is not driven by his personality but by the dictates of the plot – arrogance, then conflict, then a declaration of love at the end.

Pinkie is the same way. We’re told that she’s sensible and compassionate, but her motivations are not understandable. She forgives Michael for being rude and arrogant almost before he has a chance to apologize. Then she marries him. I don’t know why. It seems she does it because he’s the hero and she’s the heroine, and that’s what she’s supposed to do.

If you are a fan of Amanda Scott, you’ll no doubt want to add this to your collection, especially if you’ve read the previous three books in this series. And while the author does know her history, I’d prefer to read a romance that more seamlessly integrates history into the narrative. I quite enjoy revisiting an old plot if the author delivers a fresh new twist. Sorry to say, that didn’t happen here.