ARC Review: Highland Crown (Royal Highlanders #1) by May McGoldrick

Title: Highland Crown

         Royal Highlander 1

Author: May McGoldrick

Release Date: April 30, 2019 (ARC Version)

Published By: St. Martin’s Press

Category: Historical – Romance – Scottish

Type: Digital – Paperback – Audio

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May McGoldrick Website

Blurb: 

Inverness, 1820
Perched on the North Sea, this port town—by turns legendary and mythological—is a place where Highland rebels and English authorities clash in a mortal struggle for survival and dominance. Among the fray is a lovely young widow who possesses rare and special gifts.

WANTED: Isabella Drummond
A true beauty and trained physician, Isabella has inspired longing and mystery—and fury—in a great many men. Hunted by both the British government and Scottish rebels, she came to the Highlands in search of survival. But a dying ship’s captain will steer her fate into even stormier waters. . .and her heart into flames.

FOUND: Cinaed Mackintosh
Cast from his home as a child, Cinaed is a fierce soul whose allegiance is only to himself. . . until Isabella saved his life—and added more risk to her own. Now, the only way Cinaed can keep her safe is to seek refuge at Dalmigavie Castle, the Mackintosh family seat. But when the scandalous truth of his past comes out, any chance of Cinaed having a bright future with Isabella is thrown into complete darkness. What will these two ill-fated lovers have to sacrifice to be together…for eternity?

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Favorite Lines:

She flared the skirts out to get the full effect of the brocade, then pulled down on the bodice, revealing a little bit more of Isabella’s breasts. “When ye go to market with the halibut, mistress, ye don’t hide ‘em in the sacking.”  ~  Jean

Excerpt:

          Cinaed looked up into a woman’s face. Fine black eyebrows arched over brown eyes that were focused on his chest. Thick dark hair was pulled back in a braid and pinned up at the back of her head. Intent on what she was doing, she was unaware that he was awake. 
          Her brow was furrowed, and lines of concentration framed the corners of her mouth. The grey travel dress she wore was plain and practical. She was not old, but not young either. Not fat, not thin. From where he lay, he guessed she was neither tall nor short. She was beautiful, but not in the flashy way of the women who generally greeted sailors in the port towns. Nor was she like the eyelash-fluttering lasses in Halifax who never stopped trying to get his attention after a Sunday service. He didn’t bother to assess the pleasant symmetry of her face, however. The “brook no nonsense” expression warned that she wasn’t one to care what others thought of her looks, anyway. 
          But who was she? 
          The last clear memory he had was seeing a flash from the shore. The next moment his chest had been punched with what felt like a fiery poker. Everything after that floated in a jumbled haze. He recalled being in the water, trying to swim toward some distant shore. Or was he struggling to reach the longboat again? 
          Cinaed didn’t know what part of his body hurt more, the fearsome pounding in his head or the burning piece of that poker still lodged in his chest. 
          “Where am I?” he demanded. “Who the deuce are you?”
          Startled, she sat up straight, pulling away and scowling down at him. In one blood-covered hand, she held a needle and thread. In the other, a surgeon’s knife that she now pointed directly at his throat. 
          “Try to choke me again and I’ll kill you.”
          “Choke you? For the love of God, woman!”
          His ship. The reef. The explosion. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to clear away the fog. Everything he’d been through struck him like a broadside. 
          The Highland Crown was gone. He’d detonated the powder himself. Where were his men? He’d climbed into the last longboat. They’d been fired at from the beach. He’d been shot. 
          Cinaed grabbed the knife-wielding wrist before she could pull it away. “Where are my men?”
          An ancient woman in Highland garb slid into his line of sight behind the younger one. She was making sure he saw the cudgel she had over one shoulder. 
          “This one is worth less than auld fish bait, mistress,” she taunted. The crone was ready and obviously eager to use that club. “And thankless too, I’m bound. I was right when I said ye should never have saved him.”
          Should never have saved him. He released the wrist, and the hand retreated. But the dark-haired woman didn’t move away. As if nothing had happened, she dropped the knife on the cot out of his reach. The brown eyes again focused on his chest, and she put her needle back to work. 
          He winced but kept his hands off the woman. 
          By all rights, he should be dead. A musket ball cut him down and knocked him into the water. He should indeed be finished. Someone on shore had tried to kill him. 
          But he was alive, and apparently he owed his life to this one. Gratitude flowed through him. 
          “Want me to give him another knock in the head?” the old witch asked. 
          “Last stitch. Let me finish,” she said in a voice lacking the heavier burr of the northern accent. “You can kill him when I’m done.”
          A sense of humor, Cinaed thought. At least, he hoped she was joking. She tied off the knot, cut the thread and straightened her back, inspecting her handiwork. He lifted his head to see what kind of quilt pattern she’d made of him. A puckered line of flesh, topped by a row of neat stitches, now adorned the area just below his collarbone. He’d been sewn up by surgeons before, and they’d never done such a fine job of it. He started to sit up to thank her. 
          That was a grave mistake. For an instant, he thought the old woman had used her cudgel, after all. When he pushed himself up, his brain exploded, and he had no doubt it was now oozing out of his ears and eye sockets. The taste of bilge water bubbled up in his throat. 
          “A bucket,” he groaned desperately. 
          The woman was surprisingly strong. She rolled him and held a bucket as his stomach emptied. She’d been expecting this, it appeared. However horrible he was feeling before, it was worse now as the room twisted and rocked and spun. Long stretches of dry heaves wracked his body. 
          “Blood I can deal with,” the old woman grouched somewhere in the grey haze filling the room. He heaved again. “By all the saints!”
          “I’ll clean up later. Don’t worry about any of this. Go sit by the fire, Jean. You’ve had a long night.”
          Cinaed felt a wet cloth swab the back of his neck and his face. 
          Jean mumbled something unintelligible about “weak-bellied” and “not to be trusted” and “a misery.” When he hazarded a glance at her, she was glaring at him like some demon guarding the gates of hell. 
          “Does my nephew know that yer a doctor?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of him as she snatched up the knife and handed it to the younger woman. 
          A doctor! He lifted his head to look at her again. She was definitely a woman. And a fine-looking one, at that. He was still breathing, and she’d done an excellent job on whatever damage was done to his chest by the bullet. But the possibility of any trained physician, or even a surgeon, being here in this remote corner of the Highlands was so implausible. Male or female. 
          “John knows.”
          “But ye say yer not a midwife,” Jean persisted, a note of disbelief evident in her tone. “And not just a surgeon, in spite of all them fine, shiny instruments in that bag of yers.”
          “I trained as a physician at a university. But I’m finding that my abilities as a surgeon have more practical uses wherever I go.”
          University trained. Cinaed stole another look at her. She had an air of confidence in the way she spoke and acted that convinced him that she was telling the truth. And for the first time since the Highland Crown struck that reef, he wondered if his good fortune was still holding, if only by thread. Lady Luck, apparently, had sent him Airmid, his own goddess of healing. 
          Long-forgotten words, chanted over some injury, came back to him from childhood. Bone to bone. Vein to vein. Skin to skin. Blood to blood. Sinew to sinew. Marrow to marrow. Flesh to flesh . . . 
          From the floor, she retrieved a bowl containing bloody cloths. A musket ball lay nestled like a robin’s egg on the soaked rags. By the devil, he thought, his admiration nearly overflowing. She not only stitched him together, she dug the bullet out of him. 
          The deuce! He’d never seen anyone like her. Frankly, he didn’t care if she came from the moon to practice medicine here. He owed his life to her. 
          “And a woman doctor, to boot,” Jean said. “Imagine that. I never knew there were any.”
          Cinaed lifted his head to catch a glimpse of the heart-shaped face next to his. The eyes were dark and beautiful, but she wasn’t seeing him. Her attention was on wiping the sweat from his face. 
          “I never knew there were any either,” he managed to say before bending over the bucket and vomiting again.

Highlight:

          A housekeeper and a woman wearing a cook’s apron leaped into the fray as soon as they passed through the front door. With each of them shouting unintelligible directions at Searc and the men, they added more confusion to exactly where the wounded man should be taken. The master of the house ignored them entirely, however, and he was carried through a dimly lit hall up an even darker stairwell. 

          Isabella saw almost nothing of their surroundings, though, keeping her eyes on Cinaed’s face and the uneven rise and fall of his chest. He was in his prime and strong, but what he’d gone through and how much blood he’d lost since last night was enough to kill any man. 

          They laid him on a bed in the square room at the top of the tower. In the lane below the window, she could hear Jean exchanging words with a stable hand. 

          Isabella wasn’t waiting around for an invitation to help. “I need pitchers of cold water and clean cloths I can use for bandages,” she ordered. “And more light.”

          Hearing no response, she looked up and found the men staring at their employer. 

          “The surgeon is coming,” he said curtly. 

          “Do you see his arm? The wound must be cleaned of the blood to prepare him for your surgeon.”

          The hedgerows tilted to one side. “Have you any idea what you’re doing, woman?”

          She rolled up her sleeves. “I know what to do, and I won’t hurt him. I promise.”

          A long pause followed. Then, to Isabella’s relief, Searc ordered the men to go and send up the housekeeper with what she needed. 

          He stood at the foot of the bed, and she saw his hand move inside his coat again when Isabella took the knife from Cinaed’s boot. Ignoring him, she used it to cut the sleeve from the injured arm. His shirt was already torn, and it took only a moment to remove it. She inspected the bandages on his chest. 

          “Who are you?”

          She unwrapped the bloody strips from Cinaed’s arm. Her attention focused on the wound, but she was aware of the man watching her every move. For every question he asked, she had no doubt there would be ten more. 

          “Who are you?” he repeated, sharper than before. 

          His wife. She was Cinaed Mackintosh’s wife. The words wouldn’t leave her lips. What did she know about him if Searc didn’t believe her? He was owner and captain of the Highland Crown. His brig sank off Duff’s Head. But what else did she know? He was fast with a knife and braver than any man who ever lived. But that wasn’t enough. What if he asked when had they met? Or wed? Or anything else, for that matter? 

          “Do you have a name, woman?”

          The housekeeper barreled into the room, carrying a pitcher and basin. A serving girl carried a candle and cloths. Isabella motioned to put them on a table beside the bed. 

          “Could you bring him something to drink?” she asked the housekeeper. “And perhaps some broth, if the cook can manage it.”

          “And whiskey,” Searc ordered, sending the two women scurrying from the room. 

          She held the candle where she could see the wounded arm better. Thankfully, the ball traveled through the fleshy part of his bicep. She carefully shifted the arm and peered at the bullet’s exit. 

          “It missed the bone entirely,” she said, relieved. “The ball went straight through.”

          Wetting a clean cloth, she washed the dried blood from around the damaged flesh. 

          “You can’t stay here unless you tell me this minute who the devil you are and what business you have tending to him,” Searc threatened. “For all I know, you could be the one who shot him. You could be a blasted spy sent here to meddle in my affairs.”

          Isabella recalled Cinaed’s warning that Searc would be no friend to her. “If you please, I know and care nothing about your affairs. Now you will kindly remain silent and let me focus on what I have to do.”

          She was pressing hard with the cloth near the wound, and Cinaed gasped. He blinked a few times, staring at the ceiling. 

          “Your arm stays,” she whispered to him. “I’m cleaning it now.”

          “Isabella?” His head turned, and his eyes slowly focused on her face. 

          “You need to lie still.”

          “Come closer.”

          She leaned over him. 

          “Closer.” 

          His voice was weak. She decided whatever he was going to tell her was for her ears only and not for the bulldog standing at the foot of the bed. But before she could speak, Cinaed reached up with his good arm. His hand slipped around the nape of her neck, and his lips closed on hers. 

          His lips were parched and hot from the fever, the texture of his whiskers rough on her chin. Despite it all, her heart leaped, and she reveled in the touch of their mouths. His head dropped back too soon, ending the kiss. 

          “Whatever you do,” he said wearily. “When our bairn is born, don’t name him Searc.”

Review: 

Isabella is a woman who has always done what was necessary to get through life and her choices have not been easy given the path of her deepest passion – a career as a physician. Had it not been for her father’s influence as a doctor, she likely wouldn’t have made the advancements that she did., However, winning people over to a female surgeon is still an uphill battle. Never one to rock the boat despite her unconventional profession, even her marriage is one of a need for protection as well as its convenience. But her husband’s sympathies towards the rebellion land her in unbelievable circumstances and she finds herself running for her life, desperately trying to save the lives of her sister and stepdaughter, her husband already having paid his final dept. When Cinaed unexpectedly lands at her feet, she has no choice but to save him and the path they embark on together is one she could never have guessed she’d find herself on. She may have always been passionate about her profession, but she’s never experienced the kind of passion Cinaed inspires within her and before too long the two realize that together they are more powerful united despite their seemingly bleak future.

Cinaed has never truly belonged anywhere and the truth of his heritage is known only to a few. A revelation that will shake up the rebellion in unimagined ways, even Cinaed isn’t privy to the truth and the implications and weight such knowledge possesses. Known only as a phantom of sorts, he has been smuggling weapons and supplies to those in need so that they are better prepared when the uprising occurs – and it’s coming soon. When his ship is lost and injury threatens his life, he must trust Isabella to save him. Owing her his life, this man who pledges allegiance to no one now pledges himself to Isabella and determines to keep her safe no matter the threat or consequence. The more dangerous their path, the stronger their bond becomes. When the truth of Cinaed’s heritage is finally revealed, the question lingers as to whether Isabella will fight with him or flee. For the first time in his life, he finally feels like he belongs somewhere when he’s in Isabella’s arms. But if he must let her go, he will do just that in order to protect her.

I am so in love with this book! I absolutely adore the magical writing prowess of this author team and how they craft such an extraordinary tale woven with historical truths and fictional characters. A reader is nearly robbed of the ability to choose between like and dislike with this author. The inevitable romance between reader and book practically a certainty. I was swept into the mystery of misdeeds by black-hearted souls, and the desperate fight for justice from kind-hearted people from the instant I began reading and continued peeling beck the pages; unable to keep from seeking out what would occur next. Cinaed and Isabella created their own amount of danger for themselves in the lives they led, but once they came together the danger factor soared to ridiculous heights. While their attraction was a bit of a slow burn, once those embers stoked to life, there was no taming the flame. I found myself hoping for a way in which they could be together despite having nearly every possible thing going against them. I’d like to think that there could have been two such selfless people, desiring only to help those in need, that could come together with like goals and find a way to champion the underdogs in momentous ways, all while carving out an HEA for themselves. Initially, there are several characters mentioned, but many of them are not a part of this story until much later in the book. This worked well because once someone who had been described (however briefly) was brought in, the reader had some knowledge prior to the appearance. Had they all been brought in at the same time and without forethought, confusion could have easily taken this story over. Between the cast and the constant state of danger, much happened within these pages, but the brilliance of this writing couple allowed me to keep up as events unfolded, secrets were revealed, and danger relentlessly attacked. I’m still a bit shocked at how intrigued I was with this book. I even told my husband I was pretty sure I had stumbled upon a romance series I believed he would enjoy. *whispers* I never say anything like that and tend to keep my readings to myself. So what a huge statement that was for me to make! And I meant it wholeheartedly! If I had to describe this for those who cling to familiar – think of this book/series as similar to Outlander. Even the parallels with Jamie and Claire – Highlander and surgeon. But this is decades following Culloden and the struggle to find their place and fight for what is right following the defeat. So similar to Outlander and yet nothing like it - if that helps at all. The authors may not appreciate that drawn likeness, but I know several who would be that much more attracted to this series simply for that observation.

As mentioned, some of these characters do wait until quite late in the book to appear, but I came to find out that our main couple continues in the next book and we see many more of these secondary characters and will spend more time with them in future installments. This in no way implies a cliffhanger as I personally despise them. Everything ends in an appropriate place which would allow a reader to feel satisfied at the conclusion, but with just a bit of a hint as to what is to come. Also helpful were the author’s notes at the conclusion, providing a glimpse into the separation of fact from fiction, their inspiration for writing, and where the series was headed next. I literally just came back from my eReader and discovered that I actually managed to obtain the entire series in the form of ARCs, so I am thrilled to know I will be digging into the next book HIGHLAND JEWEL forthwith. As far as steamy, this book kept things modest. While the passion was most definitely a very real thing between Isabella and Cinaed and their heated glances practically sizzled off of the pages, their coming together was basically eluded to and not described except with very minimal detail. While I tend to like a bit more meat within “bedroom scenes”, for this book, it fit perfectly. I believe it would have been somewhat out of place to cut from so much fear and danger to an illicit sex scene despite the fact that several of the most steamy scenes I have come across were born of near-death experiences, or exceptionally dangerous situations just prior to the joining. As far as the league of secondary characters, from Edinburgh to Maggot Green, many of them take a bit of time warm up to, but warm-up I did. Due to the state of unrest these small-town people have been living in, many are wary initially and extremely distrustful. Completely understandable given the recent events within the Highlands leading to so much death and corruption. Honestly, I could likely go on for many more pages about how much I loved this book, how fantastic the creation of these characters were, how perfectly this world was built using history and fiction, and how absolutely thrilled I am to read the second book next. However, that won’t get me to the next installment any quicker, so I will depart with the following thoughts. May McGoldrick is an absolute MUST READ author. If you have not yet experienced any of their books, you are seriously doing yourself an injustice. For those who enjoy historical romance and particularly Scottish history, this will be a gem. Never have I been so swept away. In fact, I’ll likely be reading this series more than once and I will definitely be recommending it to others. I count myself lucky to have stumbled onto this series and author and will relish every single moment I feel privileged to spend within it.

Kindle version provided by NetGalley/St. Martin’s in exchange for an honest review.