Highland Fling

This is just one of those feel good, cuddle up in your blanket type of books. I love the way Fforde can make you escape into her books. You wish that you were witty, and charming and enduring like her heroines, and that you always end up with the gorgeous, sexy man of your dreams. Yes this story has been told before, but it will get you every time.(Which is what we all look for in the perfect romance novel)

Genevieve ("Jenny for short") is a virtual assistant sent to the highlands to inspect the books and profits of a failing sweater company. She stays at Dalmain House where she gets to know its inhabitants a little more than she would have preferred. Lady Dalmain is an old shrew that treats her only daughter like a servant. Philip is the sweet, doting eldest son who does no wrong. Felicity is the agoraphobic who seethingly does everything her mother tells her and never stands up to herself. Iain is the rebel son who married under class and lives a "cottage love" life. Upon Jenny's arrival, things start to change for the better for everyone. I loved Jenny - she was so caring, sweet and self-sacrificing for people who were basically strangers. Ross Grant was a treat and I loved how Jenny was so rude to him, totally out of character for her. The book was very predictable, but oftentimes these light romance novels are. Other than that, I have no complaints! Highland Fling is funny, sweet, breezy, touching, at times very hot, and ultimately satisfying. What more do you want in a romance? This was my first Katie Fforde novel, and based on it I will definitely read more from her.

When Katie Fforde is "on," nobody can reel you in like she can. And "Highland Fling" s the best she has written in years.As always, the plot is pure fluff, and we know from page one that the lead character, a gritty Brit, will save the day. In this book, our heroine is particularly likeable: a thirtysomething, thoroughly modern Londoner who, after being dumped from her dot-com job, has become a "virtual assisant." In that role, she uses her accounting and business skills to analyze weak businesses for her Internet boss, whom she has never met in person. The job suits her, and apparently suits him too, as she is well paid for her efforts.As the book opens, Jenny is leaving her impossibly boring and stodgy live-in boyfriend, Henry, for the North country--the Scottish Highlands, where she is being sent to investigate a failing family-owned woollen mill. Secretly glad to get out from under Henry's patronizing wing, Jenny rides up north to tackle what she thinks will be a quick and dirty assignment--prove that the books are hopeless, report back to her boss, and drive home before he closes the mill out from under the family and local employees.But it doesn't qute work out that way. Jenny is drawn into the bosom, so to speak, of the Dalmain family--owners of the mill--whose dowager mother lives very much in the 19th century, whose "laird," the eldest son, is dating a barmaid, and whose daughter, a spinster in her domineering mother's eyes, is a psychological mess. Jenny gets drawn into the drama, and in no time, is up to her eyeballs in llamas and alpacas as she tries to save the mill.Oh--there's also a tall, handsome, and impossibly rude stranger who brings out all the worst in Jenny...what is Ross Grant doing in Scotland, and why does he make her want to jump out of her skin? I can say no more.As the Brits would say, "Well done, Katie!" This is great fun, and a great read. Pick it up and see for yourself.

I like western romance best, but this is some read. Don't miss it, or Lawless by Palmer either. Add Anything, My Love by Simmons as well. All books you won't be able to put down. Great reat reads...

In England, her boyfriend Henry tells Jenny not to go on her business trip to Scotland because it will prove to be a failure as he believes she is too passionate to do the job. Serving as a virtual assistant to clients she rarely sees Jenny goes ahead with her trip in spite of his dire warnings to determine whether Dalmain Mills is worthy of outside investment or he should just be shut down.In the Highlands, Jenny meets pregnant Meggie Dalmain, wife of the younger son to the Dalmain estate, and before she can shut her mouth agrees to run Homely Haggis, a refreshment stand. She meets the rest of the family including the standoffish matriarch, lonely daughter, and oldest son. However, she begins to like the eccentric brood and decides to turn the business into an efficient effective company through cockamamie schemes. There is also nasty Ross Grant who she should detest for his boorish behavior towards her but instead falls in love with him.This is a fun contemporary romance that focuses on an individual who struggles to succeed in her profession, but allows her feelings to interfere with her business acumen. Though amusing especially during the gender war scenes, the story line contains a serious undertow involving failing "cottage" industries. Though the ending is tied up to easily and the use of profanity for the most part is out of place, Kate Fforde provides an all around good "thyme" for her fans.Harriet Klausner