Alexandra Kiley’s Kilt Trip is a contemporary romance with definite shades of the 2010 movie Leap Year (the heroine even names her suitcase) without the Other Man.

Addie Macrae is a tour company consultant on assignment to Scotland. She’s been sent to put some shock paddles to The Heart of the Highlands, a family-owned outfit. On arrival, Addie drops in on a tour incognito and is immediately charmed by Logan Sutherland, the son of the Heart’s owner. Logan’s charmed too – until Addie shows up at the office the next morning ready to alter the way he does things. Logan is anti-big-tourist-attractions and anti-change, the latter because his one prior attempt at innovation didn’t go well.

The book’s title is a pun on the expression ‘guilt trip’, but this is more of a book about grief than guilt. A major secondary plotline is Addie addressing the pain around the death of her mother (and the emotional loss of her father, who fell apart in the aftermath). Her parents went to Scotland on their honeymoon, and Addie is looking to walk in her mother’s footsteps. The book handles the balance between this plotline and the romance really well. It gives Addie’s grief its due without sinking the happiness of the love story beneath it.

Addie and Logan’s Special Connection was more apparent to them than me initially, but I was pleasantly surprised that Kiley’s interpretation of the enemies-to-lovers trope was one where both parties are entirely aware of their interest in each other very early on. And they hit their stride when their tour hits the road. Kiley does a wonderful job of evoking Addie and Logan’s physical attraction, highlighting its nuances and showing how it permeates everything. Logan becomes fixated on the bow on Addie’s shirt—“He wanted to tug the sashes tied together . . . at her waist more than he’d wanted a driving license”. And Addie notices while on a phone call that “she’d wound her navy scarf around her wrists and clutched it to her chest like she had with Logan’s hands.”

Kilt Trip also features one of the most original sex scenes I’ve read in ages. I love a good all-in love scene, where there is (as the saying goes) a little less talk and a little more action. But what I found so refreshing was how Kiley shows that even if one’s not talking, one can definitely be thinking throughout sex. Addie goes on an entire emotional journey in her head the first time she goes to bed with Logan. Not only that, but he’s aware and helps her work through it.

What keeps this book from a DIK grade is that, aside from the stellar depiction of chemistry, the writing isn’t exceptionally compelling chapter to chapter. This is a fast read – the chapters are very short – and there’s no real reason to go slow because there’s not a lot of depth to savor.

Logan has brothers who appear destined to get their own books. While I can’t say I liked Kilt Trip enough to commit to climbing further in their family tree at the earliest opportunity, I do think it’s a pleasant stop on any literary tour of 2024 releases.