This book is the Winner of the 2011 Holt Medallion Award for Best First Book.
Is anyone perfect as an author with their first book???
Highland Blessings is a surprisingly adept first novel from Jennifer Hudson Taylor. The book serves up a truly likable heroine, a satisfying romance, and all with a lush backdrop of castles, clans, plaids and a Scottish brogue to boot. A good supporting cast brings depth to the story, and I can recommend this book for a good dose of blessings, indeed. I look forward to seeing more from this new author.
There were a couple of plot points I stumbled over a bit, but the good far outweighs the bad in this medieval Scottish tale.
A small glossary would be a nice future addition for novice brogue readers' benefit including words like burn (river), bairn (child), kirk (church), & sennight (week).
Technically speaking, this would rate a 2.5 star but the sweet story warrants rounding up instead of down.
Here is the perfect example of the difference between a good storyteller and a good writer. The story telling is wonderful in this book, both Akira and Bryce are basically good, honest and compassionate people trying to do what's right for everyone while striving to maintain a level of happiness for themselves. The reader grows to love them both as they struggle with other's expectations and their own growing feelings amid the backdrop and barbarity of medieval Scotland. The Christian aspect is obvious but presented in a very unthreatening but uplifting way, making it part of the tale rather than an aside from it.
It's in the actual writing of the story that it falls apart. The sentences often seem elementary, the transitions very basic, the dialogue bordering on kitschy and the overall flow somewhat clumsy. It feels like a novice writer trying to tell a great story. If one doesn't mind or is able to overlook all the shortcomings in the writing style, this could be a very enjoyable read
