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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780821779996
ISBN number: 0821779990
Label: Zebra
Manufacturer: Zebra
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: May 01, 2007
Publishing house: Zebra
Sale Popularity Level: 40037
Studio: Zebra
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Brief Book Summary:
New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell returns to the fateful realms of the Scottish Highlands, where a man's destiny lies in the heart of the woman who once betrayed him...
Beaten and left for dead, Sir Lucas Murray is a man wounded in body and soul. He has brought himself back to becoming the warrior he once was--except for his ruined leg and the grief he feels over the death of the woman he once loved...the same woman who led him into his enemies' hands.
Dressed as a masked reiver, it is Katerina Haldane who saves Lucas as he battles for his life--and for revenge. Shocked that she still lives, Lucas becomes desperate to ignore the desire raging through his body. And Katerina becomes desperate to regain his trust, trying to convince him of her half-sister's role in his beating. Lucas is reluctant to let down his guard, but his resistance melts once Katerina is back in his arms...and his bed. Now he must learn to trust his instincts--in battle and in love...
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Rated by buyers 
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Lucas is on the hunt for revenge against the people who tried to murder him a year ago. He is devastated that one of those people is the woman he had loved so deeply, but he's determined not to let his emotions stop him. When he is attacked from all sides by the same group who tried to murder him before, Katerina and her band of renegades race into the fight to save him. Although he is reluctant to believe Katerina's claims of innocence, Lucas decides to work with Katerina and her men to get revenge on the people who have stolen her castle... the same people who thought they had beaten him to death a year ago. Katerina is determined to convince Lucas that she took no part in that plot to kill him. Lucas is determined to find the truth. Despite their differences, Lucas and Katerina can't deny their hunger for each other.
Hannah Howell's books tend to run either hot or cold. This one was lukewarm. I liked the fact that the story took place in a unique setting. Throughout most of the book, they are living in underground caves. A nice switch from the usual castle scenery. Also, the hero and heroine are both strong, but they are not written to be invincible. Both suffered physical and emotional injuries in their pasts and during the story itself.
Unfortunately, Hannah Howell tends to drag out the "He doesn't really love me."/ "She doesn't really love me." theme in her books. This one took it to an extreme. Lucas spends weeks subsequent to Katerina's bed while fighting to keep her alive as she is racked with fever from injuries, but she can't decide if he really cares. Katerina rides into a sword fight to take Lucas to safety, but he's sure she doesn't really love him. After the villains are killed, there are actually 4 whole chapters spent on dragging out the idea that Lucas and Katerina each think the other doesn't really care. I skimmed the last 3 chapters, but I could tell I didn't miss anything when I read the epilogue.
Rated by buyers -
After reading the rest of Ms. Howell's Highland Series I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. Unfortunately the story fell a bit short of my expectations.
I have come to know and love the Murray family from her other books and was very invested, and couldn't wait to read Lucas Murray`s story.
His story begins when he arrives in the village of Dunlochan with plans to exact revenge on the men who beat him and left him for dead. This doesn't go well, and just like that fatal night a year ago, he's outnumbered. Luckily for him, Katherine Haldane, dressed as a masked reiver, comes to his rescue. At the time he doesn't realize its Kat, the woman he used to love, the same woman he believed was dead, and had betrayed him. But when they come face to face Lucas releases his anger on her, accusing her of being the reason he will always walk with a limp. She cannot believe what she's hearing especially since her heart is beating out of her chest at the thought of being so close to the man she loved and also believed was dead. She tries to explain that she had nothing to do with his beating, and that she herself almost died at the hands of the same people, but Lucas doesn't want to hear her, even when his heart is telling him the truth.
Lucas finds out the truth while Kat tortures herself with the prospect of having nothing more than Lucas sharing her bed, but not her heart. He struggles to admit he was wrong.
In the end, the good guys win, and those who perpetrated the attacks, one of which turns out to be Kat's half sister Agnes, are brought to justice .
I believe the lack of backstory makes it hard for the reader to really care about these two characters. Not to mention it lacks the heartbreaking emotion of Ms. Howell's other books.
I give this book 3 *** Stars.
Rated by buyers -
I adore stories set in medieval England, Ireland and Scotland - as long as they have a strong female character who stands her ground and preferably wields a sword. I thought I would love Highland Savage. The main character, Kat, is in hiding with her band of compatriots. The group races out in the night to help those in need. The cruel half-sister has taken charge of the area, and the struggle for power is dire.
Into this mix comes Lucas. Here's the very first problem. "Off-stage", a year or so before this story begins, apparently Lucas met Kat and the two made love. Then Lucas was beaten up and thrown off a cliff by a group of bandits, while Kat was held nearby. Lucas was told - by these cruel bandits - that Kat ordered the beating. Of course, Lucas believes the nasty bandits and immediately condemns the woman he was infatuated with, simply on their say-so. He returns to the scene of the crime for revenge.
I really would have liked to have a "prologue" laying out their love for each other, the situation of the attack, and then had it say "a year later ..." As it stands, as a reader I have no connection at all to these two people, an no real sense of why they adored each other. How long were they courting before they made love? Was it a one time thing before this bandit attack? Why did she love him? We don't know. All we know is that he's back for vengeance, she jumps in to rescue him, and now they're hiding out in caves together. He blames her for his damaged leg and heart. She's pouty because her true love has turned on her so easily.
This leaves the rest of the story to work through that damaged pride. He cares for her tenderly when she's injured - but she figures he doesn't love her. She moons over him every chance she gets, but he still doesn't trust her. I understand of course that romance novels are all about these sorts of misunderstandings, but it just didn't seem "real" here. I really have to believe that it's because the context was never laid down. We never got a chance to see the great connection that was damaged. We only get to see them trying to repair the harm, and even there it seems on-again, off-again.
I could complain about the heavy Scottish accent put into every line, but that happens in a number of books. You just have to settle in and accept the "Weel, I dinnae ken what that mon did ..."
An OK read, but not one I'll keep on my shelves.
Rated by buyers 
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I love Hannah Howell. I have all of her books including the older ones and if i see a book by her i buy it no questions asked. which i did with this book. I wish i hadn't. I had to struggle to finish this book and in the last couple chapters i skipped them. I didn't care what happened to the characters. We weren't told how they met and fell in love. Not knowing anything about that made me feel that i missed out on a big part of the story. I have the story before this one about his twin brother and it didn't mention anything about Lucas, just that he was away. the epilogue was better then the whole story and it made me wish that Ms Howell had written more about the people in the epilogue. I hate to give this book one star but I truly disliked it. I am taking it back to the store i disliked it so much and i always have Ms Howell's books on my 'keeper' shelf. Not this one.
Rated by buyers -
This book starts, rather strangely, part-way through the plot. In the very first few pages we disocver that Hero and Heroine had previously met offstage, had a romance, become lovers and then had a Big Misunderstanding which meant each thought the other dead and the man thought the lady had betrayed him. When this story starts, these events are a year in the past and the man, Lucas Murray, is returning to the village where the woman Katerina Haldane betrayed him to have his revenge on her (in some unspecified way as he's not a man to do violence to women). When he discovers she died on the same day that she betrayed him he doesn't know quite what to do but then almost instantly he runs into trouble and is rescued by... you've guessed it... the woman who died a year ago.
Lucas instantly accuses her of turning her back on him and thus we start Phase II of the Big Misunderstanding, this time being detailed for the reader rather than as backstory. I was rather concerned that this plot device would run through the whole book but fortunately Lucas discovers the truth when, most fortuitously, he happens to be listening at a peephole to his enemies discussing their future plans and they just happen to talk about the events a year ago and lay the whole truth out for Lucas's greedy ears. How convenient, but unfortunately for this reader it felt like an incredibly lazy author's plot device which wasn't believable. But of course it didn't completely solve the Big Misunderstanding as although Lucas now knows he was mistaken he has very much hurt Katerina and he has to ask her for forgiveness. Sadly it appears that, for Lucas, apologising is about as easy as trying to nail jelly to the ceiling.
We are told right from the start who the baddies are - Agnes, Katerina's half-sister who rather fancied Lucas herself but was rejected, and Ranald, an uncouth and violent man who wants to marry Agnes so that he can become Laird. At the moment the Council who choose the Laird will not accept Agnes as her husband Robbie is unsuitable (and also missing, he ran away when he realised how awful Agnes was); if they knew that Katerina was alive and if she married Lucas the Council would almost certainly confirm her as Laird, thus the original attempted murders of Lucas and Katerina a year ago. Now the two are back together (or at least in proximity to each other) Agnes and Ranald mean to try again to murder them, and with more success. Can Lucas and Katerina survive, can they keep the people safe, can they forgive each other etc etc? This is a formulaic book and there are few surprises but the story moves along reasonably well and there's a plot underpinning it, not something one always finds in this kind of book. For some reason it continued on a couple of chapters further than strictly necessary after the main plot had finished; this was presumably to give a more rounded view of the love story but it felt rather superfluous to me.
I'm never entirely convinced by books with Scottish dialect. "Weel, mon, ye isnae stupid..." just reads uncomfortably to me. This book is littered with that kind of speech and it can become a little trying after a while. However the author is able to catch a little of the feeling of life in those times in the harshness of Scotland and the way in which the clans and families cared for each other. Despite its good points this book is probably one for fans of Hannah Howell rather than new readers, particularly because of the strange way in which the book starts partway through the story of Lucas and Katerina because it is part of a series.
Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, [..]. © Helen Hancox 2007
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