Review: This Scot of Mine

This Scot of Mine by Sophie Jordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have read previous books by Sophie Jordan and enjoyed them, though none of the earlier books in this particular series, which is perhaps why I felt a bit lost when I started reading "This Scot of Mine." The heroine, Lady Clara, was clearly related to characters that featured prominently in the earlier books, and it seemed as if the groundwork for her plot to fake a pregnancy in order to escape an unwanted engagement might have been laid there. Some details about her fiance's cruelty were shared in flashbacks throughout the book, but I still felt like there was more to the story.

Beyond feeling like I was missing some background, I was bothered by several points of the story itself. First of all, why would Clara go to such extremes to get out of her engagement when she had a loving brother who was also a powerful duke as well as a stepfather who could have helped her? Did her fiance make threats against her family that I somehow missed? Based on Clara's descriptions, he didn't seem to be all that powerful or intelligent of a guy. He did not want to let Clara go, but how could he have forced her to go through with the wedding if both her brother and stepfather opposed it? Sure, canceling the wedding would have been a scandal for her family, but would that scandal really have been worse than Clara's "ruination" and ouster from Society?

I was also bothered by aspects of the book's central relationship between Clara and Hunt, whom Clara meets after escaping to Scotland to take refuge with her brother and his wife after her "ruination." Like Clara and her friends and family members, I'm not a believer in curses or magic, so I can understand why they'd have a hard time believing in Hunt's family curse. That being said, Clara's beliefs weren't really the ones that were important here; Hunt's were. If Clara really cared for Hunt, the fact that he believed in the curse should have mattered to Clara and she should have been more sensitive to his fears about what would happen if she became pregnant with his child. Instead, she just charged ahead and ignored Hunt's feelings until she couldn't anymore, and her friends and family seemed to encourage her in that.

Overall, while this book did have a few moments of humor and was overall a nice, light read, I would have to say that it was not my favorite of Ms. Jordan's works. However, I will definitely plan to pick up the next book in this series, which will feature Clara's former governess/current companion, Marian. Marian was a very likeable secondary character in this book, and in my opinion nearly stole the show in some of her scenes with Lady Clara. I look forward to seeing where the story takes Marian next.

*ARC provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

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