Highland Surrender has severe multiple personality disorder. That’s all I can say.

The Earl of Camdonn is determined to put his wild days of debauchery behind him and marry a respectable wife. He has vowed to return to Scotland and free his people from endless poverty, and, accordingly, has chosen a sensible, proper wife who will be willing to return to Scotland to assist him. With his fiancée, the very proper Lady Elizabeth in tow, he makes his way to Camdonn Castle only to be attacked by highwaymen a few miles away from home. Injured and left to die in a bush, he is found by Ceana MacNab, a local healer.

Ceana is immediately struck by his beauty and drags him home, promising herself that she will only heal him and let him go. Her family has notoriously bad luck with men, and she has sworn that she will never become emotionally involved with one ever again. Too bad that the minute Cam lays eyes on Ceana, he starts having erotic dreams about her, injured state notwithstanding, and his well-meant vow goes down the drain. Ceana, of course, is no match against the man who is an “artistic masterpiece.”

Many elements of the story did not fit well. The tone of the story and its pedestrian plot lead you to think this is going to be a benign Scottish romance, but the next thing you know, people are grabbing each other behind a dark wall and spanking each other during sex. It was really bizarre, and it seemed like weird situations were contrived for the sake of meeting a sex scene quota. The main relationship is unconvincing, and the secondary “romance” left me feeling grossed out. The hero’s goal of becoming a better man is relegated to a few cheesy scenes. The mystery/conflict of who attacked the hero on his way home is supposed to be a “historical” aspect but is rather a cheap way of getting him into the heroine’s arms. Not to mention that this book has a few “twists” worthy of a bodice-ripper romance.

Everyone is annoying, particularly Cam; he is well meaning but has the willpower of a limp noodle. In the latter half of the book he does some lengthy soul-searching, during which he asks himself tons of questions, in rapid succession. I myself asked: why me? How come I just don’t care about his problems? What could I possibly do to make this excruciating book end?

The reason Highland Surrender doesn’t get an F is because the prose is kind of nice, when it isn’t trying to be melodramatic. I also have the feeling that if someone had just picked what elements should stay, and what should have been edited out, this book would have been much more cohesive. As it is, had this not been a review book, this would have been a DNF for me.