Monday, December 31, 2007

To Catch A Highlander-Karen Hawkins

To Catch A Highlander
Karen Hawkins
Pocket, Feb 2008, $7.50
ISBN: 9781416525059

Sophia MacFarlane understands the roguish Lord Dougal MacLean owns what was her former home until her wastrel father “Red” lost it gambling to earn money for a new roof rather than sell his late wife’s diamonds. Sophia obstinately is determined to get it back, but she has no concrete plan. She vaguely figures she must use her feminine wiles to con the upstart out of her home that in her mind he temporarily albeit legally possesses.

However Dougal is not going to allow some pretty lass to outsmart him; instead he raises the stakes of her challenge. Sophia knows she is down to her last gambit, her virginity in a winner take all card game; her plan is to risk a bluff if needed; his strategy is to call her bluff. The first kiss stuns the two players; the second leaves both in shock; because they begin to realize a house is not home without love.

TO CATCH A HIGHLANDER is an incredibly humorous historical romance as Sophia and Dougal try to out-con, out-lie and out-cheat one another. The story line is fast-paced as the stakes keep getting raised by the two players as nothing is sacred in their misadventures except their growing love for one another. After reading this wonderful battle of the sexes' tale, fans will revise how they look at games of chance as sometimes a win-win is possible.

Harriet Klausner

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