Patience Griffin - To Scotland With Love

Caitriona Macleod gave up her career as an investigative reporter for the role of perfect wife. But after her husband is found dead in his mistress’s bed, a devastated Cait leaves Chicago for the birthplace she hasn’t seen since she was a child. She’s hoping to heal and to reconnect with her gran. The last thing she expects to find in Gandiegow is the Sexiest Man Alive! She just may have stumbled on the ticket to reigniting her career—if her heart doesn’t get in the way.
Graham Buchanan is a movie star with many secrets. A Gandiegow native, he frequently hides out in his hometown between films. He also has a son he’ll do anything to protect. But Cait Macleod is too damn appealing—even if she is a journalist.
Quilting with her gran and the other women of the village brings Cait a peace she hasn’t known in years. But if she turns in the story about Graham, Gandiegow will never forgive her for betraying one of its own. Should she suffer the consequences to resurrect her career? Or listen to her battered and bruised heart and give love another chance?

Comment: For ten years in the ebook pile, I've finally decided to try this story, whose cover and blurb made me think of cozy stories about people in a close community coming together for some reason.

Caitriona Mcleod is returning to Scotland after a failed marriage and the death of her husband. She feels she's given up everything for him, including her journalist career, and now she feels she can recover the bond with her grandmother in Scotland, although they have not gotten along since her father took them to live in the US. However, upon arriving at the cottage she had rented, she discovers things aren't as promised and she asks for help to the nearby house, which just happens to be occupied by Graham Buchanan, a movie actor who often seems to disappear from public view. 

Caitriona feels this is her chance to go back to her journalist career but between quilting and being around Graham ans so many other complications, could it be that her life is meant for something else?

On paper, this does sound like a very appealing story. I just can't be certain if it's the content or the author's story telling that didn't quite get there for me and in the end this was one more book I'd place among the average ones I've been reading. It's true that there is a very strong situation in the story, which made me emotional, but I think that specific situation was a bit out of sync with the rest of the novel.

The story does meet most of the ingredients one would think of when considering a cozier type of romance novel: a heroine in need of self evaluation, a family bond that needs mending, an off chance of meeting someone she was already attracted to, close proximity and a bunch of secondary little things that keep making it necessary for the main characters to see/interact very often. I really thought this would be rather predictable, and in a way, it was. Caitriona tells herself she needs to sell Graham's location as a way to save her career but of course we know that won't really happen until the last moment, probably after some big scene.

In the beginning, the story was interesting enough, even though full of scenes that were cliché (like Caitriona arriving at the hero's door in dire circumstances) but as things progressed, I feel everything got cluttered and without a real narrative line. Things happened, characters did this and that, we were told about what it felt like, what it might mean, but I confess I wasn't getting that cozy feel myself, that these characters were in a community type of situation where everything ends up being larger than life or special.

The romance was a bit forced, in my opinion. I mean, I saw the scenes and I can accept Graham and Caitriona were starting to like one another but their romance was more a collection of those scenes and the acknowledgement of someone handy in a certain situation for both of them, rather than this passion or obvious recognition they were both the one. Besides, while she has this weight on her shoulders that she should write about him to sell to a magazine, something that ends up being not that dramatic, since a way more serious situation is addressed closer to the end of the book.

In regards to that situation, I don't wish to spoiler it, but while it wasn't something impossible, I've felt it was way over the top for the story. At least, the fact that it was developed in such a detailed manner. until this, the story was a cozy romance that simply wasn't being very special and then, we have a situation that takes this over the board into drama/powerful descriptions. Again, not an impossible situation of course, but I wonder if it was the right way to use this in this specific type of story.

In the end, this felt like a mix bag for me. I liked some things, I enjoyed reading here and there, but there were also moments I was ready to finish or to not have to keep going. I did like the quilting scenes and information and I liked this was an important part of the story sometimes. Still, the transition from what this meant for the heroine and what it will mean in the big scheme of things wasn't very well done... it was almost as if sometimes including quilting benefited the scene, sometimes it was conveniently not mentioned.

All in all, one of those good premises which don't use all the potential development and, in part, the writing might be why.

Grade: 5/10