Highland Fling - Book Review

By Shelli Stevens

Synopsis

Sleeping with her boss can only lead to trouble. And pleasure.

Delonna comes by her Scottish-style frugality honestly–her parents’ spendthrift ways once left her temporarily homeless. She’s been tending bar at McLaughlin’s Pub, looking forward to the day she can call her own shots. Until her now ex-boyfriend makes off with her hard-earned savings. Now she’s got a bookie breathing threats down her neck in an apparent attempt to squeeze blood from a turnip.

Aleck McLaughlin has three good reasons to keep his hands off the delectable Delonna. One, he’s her boss. Two, she’s a good ten years younger. Three, he’s sworn to never again leave his heart vulnerable.

Her predicament sends all those reasons out the window, and Aleck moves her in with him for protection, then whisks her away on a whirlwind trip from Whidbey Island to Scotland.
The romance of being in Edinburgh only increases their need for one another. But it quickly becomes clear they’re facing a past that’s just as painful as the present is dangerous…

Review

HIGHLAND FLING is the fourth and final book in The McLaughlins series and takes place a few weeks after LOCH AND KEY finished. Here we have the oldest McLaughlin brother, Aleck, and his young employee, Delonna, who have been flirting up a storm since they started working together. Their age gap, the fact that they work together and that they’re always dating other people, is what’s kept them apart…until now. When her life is threatened, she has no choice but to move in with Aleck until the threat against her is gone.

Aleck is your standard tortured soul who is unwilling to fall in love and get married because of one (albeit tragic) incident that happened twenty years ago. He knows his feelings for Delonna are strong, but he refuses to acknowledge them and therefore hurts Delonna in the process. Of course, when tragedy strikes and he thinks he’s lost her forever, he quickly changes his tune and is suddenly more than ready to give her the world. I can’t say much about Delonna because I can’t remember much about her. I’m not saying she’s bad or anything, she’s just not very memorable.

HIGHLAND FLING is told in dual POVs, with part of the final chapter being told in Debra’s POV (The McLaughlin matriarch) and takes place a few years later, where we see every couple is still living happily ever after. As with the previous books, the story moves quite fast and the ending seems to come out of nowhere. Overall, I thought the entire series was nice and easy to read.