When I am not reading romance novels, one of my favorite authors is Dan Brown. I just love the puzzles and intrigues of his Robert Langdon books. That is what made True Highland Spirit a real pleasure for me to read. It was the historical romance version of a Dan Brown novel.

Morrigan McNab is not your average highland lass. As the story begins, she is in fact acting as a thief, stealing with her elder brother Archie in order to keep the clan alive. When they hold up a group of nobles, they win some valuables to keep food on the table, but they also inherit the nobles minstrel, Jacques Dragonet. Though it takes him a while, Jacques eventually realizes that the young lad in pants is really a beautiful lass and the two share their first kiss before Jacques is forced to move on and Morrigan goes back to her life as a “man”. But neither can forget the kiss that they shared.

Dragonet is more than he seems. Though he plays at being a minstrel, he is really a Hospitaller Knight. Now, for those of you that don’t know what that is (I didn’t), it is a Knight of the Hospitaller Monastic order. That’s right. How many romance novels heroes are monks? Not many. But Jacques is a knight, a monk, a spy, and a minstrel. He is also the son of a French Bishop who has sent him on a quest to find the last of the Templar Knights treasures that he believes is hidden in a cave in Scotland.

When Dragonet next sees Morrigan, she is fighting on a battlefield and nearly getting herself killed in the process. As he rescues her and sews up her wounds, he begs her to leave the battle and avoid fighting with the Scots and the French against the English. Though he can’t offer her anything of himself, he knows that he wants her safe and away from the battle. When Morrigan finally capitulates and heads home, Dragonet promises that he will look after her younger brother Andrew and do all in his power to get him home safely.

When Andrew is injured, Jacques brings him home to Morrigan to heal. And that is when the intrigues begin. What follows next is a quest that reminded me an awful lot of the movie National Treasure. Puzzles and clues lead Morrigan and Jacques through a Scottish cave to get medicine to save Andrew and to help Jacques complete his quest. As the last surviving Templars try to stop them and their lives hang in the balance, the two realize that the greatest treasure is finding the one person that completes you and doing all that you can to make things work. (And yes, he is a monk, but I am not spoiling that part of the story! It is too much fun trying to figure out how he is going to get out of that one!)

As much as I liked the plot and the storyline, the best part of the book is Morrigan herself. Never have I seen a heroine who is so good at not taking herself too seriously. Yes, she has had a hard life, lost her parents young, and is forced to live life as a man, but she doesn’t ever do any of the woe-is-me stuff. She knows that she still wants a husband and a family and she accepts that she may live as a man, but she is very much still a woman. She is the grumbly bear of the relationship and also the comic relief. As her sister-in-law, Alys, forces her into a dress, she laughs at herself tripping over her own feet and makes a fool of herself as she lands at Dragonet’s feet because she can’t get used to the dress. She knows Alys and Andrew are playing matchmaker and she goes with the flow and doesn’t resent their help. She is really a breath of fresh air and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her.

At the beginning of the book, True Highland Spirit looked to be a very cliché romance novel of the Highlands with a woman who was forced to live as a man and the one man that sees her as a woman awakening her to who she could be. I am happy to say that this book took one creative turn after another and broke the mold. The characters are engaging and the story is a lot of fun. Though I have read one of the previous books in the series, they are very loosely linked and this book can definitely stand on its own. It is a fun romp through the Highlands with lots of twists and turns. I am glad I took a chance on it and I can definitely recommend it.