Recent Reads {As High As the Heavens}

As High as the Heavens by Kathleen Morgan - it wasn't that I didn't like this book, but I must say I was disappointed.  Great potential for an intriguing storyline, and the main plot was a great premise, but I thought there were a couple of minor gaps in the subplots.  However, my main disappointment was that I felt that this was basically a cheap bodice-ripper that had been cleaned up a little.  (Just doing a little bit of quick research, it appears that this book was originally on the secular market and then was reworked a little - IMO, not enough - for the Christian romance fiction market. If that's true, it explains a lot.)  You know just by reading the back cover that the two main characters, Heather and Duncan, will fall in love and live happily ever after despite all the circumstances against them.  What I didn't expect was that they would both be so blatantly lusting after each other right from the first meeting, and that the romance would be so driven by their physical desire.  I don't have objections to the story including these aspects of their relationship, but I didn't read enough evidence that each was actually finding themselves loving the other for their mind and character.  The author tells us that's the case, but focuses more on how difficult it was for them to maintain propriety and virtue in the face of so much temptation.

Anyway, the basic storyline is this - supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, have hatched a plan to help her escape from the castle at Lochleven and need the rough highlander Duncan to impersonate the court favorite that he resembles closely in order to complete the operation.  Duncan's speech and manners need to be refined so that he can fool the castle's keepers, and Heather is sent to tutor him because her father is one of the conspirators.  Not surprisingly, the two fall in love (and lust LOL) and need to overcome obstacles of mistrust between them and the opposition and manipulation of Heather's father following the the completion of the mission to free Queen Mary.