Today a review of Highland Solution is featured on the blog, Love Saves the World http://www.lovesavestheworld.com/2013/10/review-highland-solution-by-ceci.html. Tin provides a very thoughtful summary and review. She clearly understands Niall’s trust issues and the precarious position in which he finds himself. She states “Niall comes across as a bit stubborn and somewhat blind to his wife’s troubles with his stepmother, but he is aware of his failings.” Although his attitude is frustrating she recognizes “Besieged within his own household and threatened outside, Niall has no choice but to trust his instincts.” This is exactly the picture I intended to paint and it thrills me that Tin captured it so succinctly.

She also shares one of my personal frustrations with the story stating that she would like to have had the fate of the Ruthvan holdings more fleshed out. She remarks, “It didn’t sit very well with me that Katherine’s evil uncle gained ownership of Cotharach Castle just like that.”

As a fair-minded woman, living in the Twenty-first century, it didn’t sit well with me either. I would love to have ensured that Lord Ruthven got what was coming to him. However, this would have strained my ability to suspend disbelief. The sad truth is, the king ordered the marriage and gave Katherine’s lands and title to her uncle. What the king wants, the king gets. It was perfectly legal, if despicable, and was an inequity that I felt could not be believably resolved. In the second chapter, Katherine ponders the events of what turned out to be her wedding day:

She took stock of the day. Aye, her king had all but forced her to marry a stranger. In fact, the rather large man she had married frightened her a bit, but, as she had boldly admitted to him earlier, she believed him to be a vast improvement over her uncle. Tomorrow she would lose her beloved Stormy, but Niall had assured her the gentle grey would be well cared for. She worried about those of her father’s people left under her uncle’s tyrannical rule, but she had managed to keep Tomas, the most vulnerable of them all, safe. All things considered, she told herself she had every reason to feel hopeful.

Given the circumstances, there was little else anyone could do. Frustrating? Yes, but also historically accurate.

I would like to thank Tin of Love Saves the World, for this wonderful and insightful review. She has asked me to appear on her blog in the near future and I am really looking forward to the opportunity.