Melissa Mayhue - Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband

SCOTLAND, 1272. Connor MacKiernan, a descendant of the Fae Prince, is a warrior who lives only for honor and duty. Though he's vowed never to marry, that's exactly what he must do to save his sister. Enter a little Faerie magic, and the search for a bride is on.
DENVER, 2007. Caitlyn Coryell is having a really bad day -- she just discovered her fiance with another woman! Imagine her surprise when she puts on some sexy lingerie and an antique pendant and Connor appears in her bedroom, begging for her help. He offers a simple yet outrageous adventure: travel to his time, marry him, and return home.
But nothing's simple when Cate is trapped in the thirteenth century. The wedding's delayed, someone's trying to kill her, and in the middle of all this, she realizes she's falling in love with a man who can only be her husband for thirty nights.

Comment: One more book I had languishing in the pile.. this is more fantasy than PNR the way I see it, but the mix of romance and magic was probably why I got it in the first place.

When this story begins, Connor MacKiernan is a 13th century warrior, who wants to save his younger sister from marrying a man she despises, and with the help of his aunt Rosalyn, a descendant from an union between a Fae and a human, he meets Catelyn Coryell, a woman from the 20th century. The magic which allows this happen requires a vow and Cate accepts to help Connor, meaning she travels to the 13th century to marry Connor, and this way he can have the support of the king and stay home to protect his sister. The problem is that his dishonorable uncle, who made the marriage deal with an old man to pay off debts, can't accept this and will try to stop the wedding. When this doesn't happen, he takes riskier decisions, which put many in danger, including Connor. What can Cate do to help, though, if the Fae magic can return her to her time at any point?

To be honest, my summary is a little incorrect, so that I can avoid spoilers, but the gist of the plot is there, I saw this is the author's debut, back in 2007, and I think it showed, because the aspect I've found to be more glaringly lacking was the plot's cohesion and how the use of magic was too convenient without any solid ability from the characters. With this I mean that since the characters don't have magical powers but can use the power of the Fae ancestors, it felt a bit vague and slightly insufficient for my practical mind how they could "invoke" the Fae to help as if it's simple. In that case, why not do it at any time? Anyway...

The story was actually quite interesting in the beginning and apart from the whole Fae magic and how the time travel could happen, things were intriguing enough. Of course contemporary Cate is a confident woman at work, but has a relationship with a man who doesn't treat her well and she even caught him cheating, even though they are engaged and she trusted him. This kind of sets her up to more easily accept the proposal from Connor, even though i think she wasn't properly surprised that a man from the 13th century shows up asking for her help... there's an explanation for this but, I mean, who would not be wary?

Most of the plot takes place while everyone is in the 13th century Highlands and I assumed we would see plenty of Cate struggling to adapt, but from the start the issue was more about her role in the big scheme of things... when an overbearing male character speaks badly of her, I thought, this is a great opportunity for this book to be a comedy perhaps, and now Cate can unleash all her 20th century independence and self worth on him, but it wasn't as fun as that, sadly. I think this was when I started noticing that the story was really more plot oriented and the characters didn't get to be developed beyond the necessary.

From then on, the story keeps going back to the marriage and why it needs to happen and also why Connor's uncle needs it to not happen, and of course this led to some conflicts towards the end. One important item of the whole Fae magic is that the "solution", if one can use this word, for everyone to have their deserved end, is true love. By this point Cate was in love with Connor, although I really can't see how, since their interactions weren't detailed and we didn't get to see a believable evolution of their relationship. It was just understood that their would be in love somehow.

Connor clearly struggled to feel the same, but then something terrible happens, a certain character proves to be a villain after all, and by protecting Cate I think Connor's "love" was kind of activated for the Fae spell, and Cate is rescued. The choice to do this, however, was incredibly weak, in my opinion. Until the end, the resolution of everything is a mix of Fae beliefs and random actions, and lots of plans that don't seem to make any sense, but then, somehow, voilá, the pieces are placed together and Cate and Connor have their HEA. I was really not impressed with the author's choices, and the specific way of using Fae magic to solve some of the problems is too far fetched, even for this fantasy scenario.

There is some medieval content and references, but nothing too detailed, and also some references to the contemporary setting, which supposedly is 2007 but that to me felt more like 1987... This to say that the story, or the premise, isn't that bad and I even liked reading some scenes, but even accepting this is the author's first book, perhaps a few other choices would have added depth to the story. I see the series has more installments, but I don't think I'll look for them on purpose.

Grade: 6/10