Overall: 4.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: Mostly first person from the heroine, though there are a few short chapters in third person from the hero

Should I read in order?
This is the first book in Banks’s Clan MacLaoch Curse series.

Basic plot:
After graduating college, Nicole decides to research her family’s history while waiting for a job offer. Her only possible lead is the Minory line from the Isle of Skye. Only when she arrives, she finds her family has been a part of a centuries long curse with the MacLaoch clan.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance with some very light paranormal elements
- fated mates
- American heroine/Scottish hero pairing
- hero is a clan chieftain/heroine is a biologist graduate
- lower steam – 1 full scene that was on the poetic/flowery side instead of explicit
- long standing family curse

Ages:
- Hero is close to 38, heroine is 28

My thoughts:
I think this book was exactly what I needed for my mood right now! I don’t usually read contemporary, but I thought if anything would get me to like it, it would be a Scottish male lead with some history of a family curse tied in. And I think it was perfection for me.

I enjoyed the slow burn tension building of Rowan and Nicole. I liked their banter together, their push and pull. And behind it all the driving force of a centuries long love story. The paranormal aspect was just enough to give you a bit of chills and wonderment, but not enough to make it overwhelming or take away from their story.

In an ideal world, I would have had a bit less villain activity (I just get annoyed with villains, mostly, but that’s just me!), more time from Rowan’s perspective, and a touch more steam or more explicitness/development for the intimate scenes, but overall these are minor complaints. I loved this story. I didn’t want to put it down. I couldn’t wait for them to come together and I was getting tingles from their wanting each other. I thought there was a lot of really sweet scenes between them, especially the hand fasting.

This book ends with a happy for now, but there is more to come in book 2 (not sure yet what direction it’s going in – how much is Rowan and Nicole, how much is the legend from the past)


Content warnings:

- Scenes of death and violence from war in the middle east including execution
- Attempted rape, kidnapping, physical violence, gunshot threat and shooting

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Pg 151 kiss
Pg 190 kiss
Pg 198 kisses, oral for her, missionary