Blog Tour (Review & Giveaway): Highlander Most Wanted by Maya Banks

Title: Highlander Most Wanted (The Montgomerys and Armstrongs #2)
Author: Maya Banks
Publisher: Ballantine Books (Random House)
Release Date: March 19, 2013
Acquired Via: TLC Book Tours
In Highlander Most Wanted, a reclusive woman content to live in the shadows shows a Highland warrior the true meaning of love.

Genevieve McInnes is locked behind the fortified walls of McHugh Keep, captive of a cruel laird who takes great pleasure in ruining her for any other man. Yet when Bowen Montgomery storms the gates on a mission of clan warfare, Genevieve finds that her spirit is bent but not broken. Still, her path toward freedom remains uncertain. Unable to bear the shame of returning to a family that believes her dead or to abandon others at the keep to an imposing new laird, Genevieve opts for the peaceful life of an abbess. But Bowen’s rugged sensuality stirs something deep inside her that longs to be awakened by his patient, gentle caress—something warm, wicked, and tempting.

Bowen seizes his enemy’s keep, unprepared for the brooding and reclusive woman who captures his heart. He’s enchanted by her fierce determination, her unusual beauty, and her quiet, unfailing strength. But wooing her will take more than a seasoned seducer’s skill. For loving Genevieve, he discovers, means giving her back the freedom that was stolen from her—even if it means losing her forever.

My Review

Highlander Most Wanted is the second book in the Montgomerys & Armstrongs series by New York Times best-selling author Maya Banks. It picks up after the events of Never Seduce a Scot ( my review) at the McHugh stronghold/castle/keep. Each book can be a standalone, but I am glad that I read them in order.

While reading Highlander Most Wanted, I realized how important characters are in a novel. Nothing in the book that happened really surprised me, and there wasn't much in the way of world-building. I'm not saying this in a negative way - there's really not supposed to be in this historical romance and the writing was still good.. There was, however, these wonderful, charming, and complicated characters that I found myself really invested in. Want a big surprise? I usually avoid literary rape victims or situations at all cost. Want to know why? Too bad, that has nothing to do with the review. Anyway, Maya Banks handled Genevieve and her story in such a way that was not uncomfortable and believable (mostly). I think I read the book because I thought Genevieve deserved a man that would heal her and love her, and make her world right. I wanted her to be fixed. She was a broken woman would never gave up at any point, and I liked her.

Review (Giveaway): Never Seduce a Scot by Maya Banks

Eveline Armstrong is fiercely loved and protected by her powerful clan, but outsiders consider her “touched.” Beautiful, fey, with a level, intent gaze, she doesn’t speak. No one, not even her family, knows that she cannot hear. Content with her life of seclusion, Eveline has taught herself to read lips and allows the outside world to view her as daft. But when an arranged marriage into a rival clan makes Graeme Montgomery her husband, Eveline accepts her duty—unprepared for the delights to come. Graeme is a rugged warrior with a voice so deep and powerful that his new bride can hear it, and hands and kisses so tender and skilled that he stirs her deepest passions.

Graeme is intrigued by the mysterious Eveline, whose silent lips are ripe with temptation and whose bright, intelligent eyes can see into his soul. As intimacy deepens, he learns her secret. But when clan rivalries and dark deeds threaten the wife he has only begun to cherish, the Scottish warrior will move heaven and earth to save the woman who has awakened his heart to the beautiful song of a rare and magical love.

Title: Never Seduce a Scot
Author: Maya Banks
Publisher: Ballantine Books (Random House)
Release Date: September 25, 2012
Acquired Via: Publisher
My Review

Never Seduce a Scot is the first book in the Montgomerys & Armstrongs series by New York Times best-selling author Maya Banks. Eveline Armstrong and Graeme Montgomery are forced into marriage by King Alexander II of Scotland in an attempt to end the decades-long blood feud between their two families.

Never Seduce a Scot came as a bit of a surprise to me. The title and cover scream "bodice-ripper", but in reality, it sits solidly in the historical romance genre. I was expecting to skim through quite a few sex scenes, but there were only two, and they were important to the progression of the novel and the character development of Graeme and Eveline. (Yes, there is some steaminess, but it's not the focal point of the novel.) It was very well done and well written.