Never Cross A Highlander has a one-click cover. Black Highlander stories are rare, and I’m glad this one offered some of the adventure and steam that dreamy cover promised. The book is slow in the middle, but there are swordfights, forced proximity while camping, sex by a waterfall, a hellion heroine, and a hard-headed hero who needed his family to tell him that he was in love.

Here’s the book’s description:

Ailsa Connery has waited three long years to finally escape her enslavement at Stirling Castle and reunite with her clan. But her carefully laid plans are completely destroyed by the arrival of the infamous Highland warrior known as Dubh Mahoun, the Black Devil…who has plans of his own.

Kallum MacNeill’s fearsome reputation has long allowed him to keep hidden his secret double life of freeing enslaved captives across the land. It’s only when he kidnaps a servant lass—quite by accident—that he finds himself facing a wee predicament. He must accompany the lass home or risk her exposing his true identity. It’d be easy enough…if the feisty hellion didn’t fight him at every turn.

As they make their way to the Highlands, the perils the two must face are surpassed only by their constant sparring. Soon, their heated sniping sparks heat of a totally different kind. The kind that ignites a hunger that could consume them both. Yet the difficult journey is no match for the dangerous secrets they’re about to uncover.

When it comes to reading slavery-adjacent historical romances, I find myself automatically ranking how central the horror of slavery is to the storyline to help me decide what type of story will fit my mood. I usually categorize books by their similarity to my favorite Alyssa Cole historicals. I call this my Alyssa Cole Anti-Slavery Book scale, which is obviously in no way endorsed by Cole:

A Hope Divided – So we’re basically constantly under threat. If slavery wasn’t bad enough, now there’s a prison
An Extraordinary Union – Shut up and kiss me, we’ve got an institutionalized system of racial oppression to take down
An Unconditional Freedom – Trauma in the past, Healing and Badassery in the present
Agnes Moor’s Wild Knight Scot – This is some bullshit…oh wait we’re in love

I would probably place Never Cross A Highlander somewhere between An Extraordinary Union and An Unconditional Freedom on my ACAB scale. Most of the trauma the main characters experience is obliquely referenced or in the past, and they have several badass moments of fighting for the heroine’s freedom.

I loved the way the book imagines what life would be like for someone who was both of African descent and a Highlander. Ailsa is the granddaughter of escaped slaves who were grudgingly welcomed into the Connery clan. She’s spent her life loving her clan but hurt at never being fully accepted because her mother was unmarried. Kallum’s mother was a Yoruba speaker who arrived at a Highland clan already pregnant. He was raised by her and his loving adoptive family, the lairds of his clan. Kallum and Ailsa weave together pride for both heritages, a shared experience of discrimination against Highlanders and Black people, and a weariness at always being seen differently. This is doubly so for Ailsa, because she doesn’t fit in with the African slaves in the royal household at the beginning of the book, and is later seen as an outsider in Kallum’s clan. Their personalities and experiences are complementary, and I was rooting for them to realize that they were perfect together.

I don’t tend to love alphas, but Kallum was a sweetheart. He’s an honorable grumpypants who is used to women wanting him, which means we get to see Ailsa competently smack his arrogance down. Kallum recognizes her strength early on and openly appreciates it, calling her a “brave Highland lass” and trusting that she can hold her own in a fight. The climax of the book lets both of them shine as they fight to protect their families and their clan.

I appreciated that this book minimizes on-page violence towards women. At the beginning, Ailsa is nearing the end of her enslavement. She’s had a tough time, but it hasn’t broken her spirit as she sneaks out to see the clans perform for the king and plots her escape. We know Ailsa was punished later because Kellum sees her bruised face but we don’t experience it with her. There’s also a brief attempted rape scene, which I could have done without, personally, and another that’s referenced but off the page. On a scale where any book in the Outlander series is a 10, and a fluffy kitten video is a 0, I would give the first scene a trauma rating of 5.

What didn’t always work for me was the book’s pacing. I was sucked into the beginning of the story as Ailsa planned her escape, but once she and Kallum hit the road the story dragged a bit. For example, Kallum kept saying there’s a lot of urgency to meet his anti-slavery compatriots before they’re caught, but he and Ailsa kept stopping to argue, er chat. While bandits were on the way. OH-KAY.

Things picked up briefly once they reunited with Kallum’s family while on the run, slumped again while they waited to decide what to do next, and then finished with an epic ending that made me cheer. I was glad to spend time with Kallum’s matchmaking and meddlesome family in the middle of the book, and I adored his hot-tempered cousin who is just begging for a book two. I only wish the story had moved more quickly towards solidifying Ailsa’s freedom. The adventure parts of the story were exciting and fun and I loved the scenes with Ailsa and Kallum’s families. I just wanted better balance with the quieter parts.

I found myself putting the book down a few times to read something else. Partly this was pacing, partly it was the density of the writing. Never Cross a Highlander is meticulously well-researched, which I felt in everything from the many words used for genitals to the inclusion of a Black trumpeter at court who was inspired by a real 16th century trumpet player. I thought the history added depth to the story, and it never felt superfluous, but readers looking for a breezy superficial read may be surprised.

Ultimately, Never Cross a Highlander gave me what I want from a summertime historical romance read: characters I was curious about, enough adventure to keep me guessing but not so much that I started stressing, solid sexual tension, and some new-to-me history facts without having to break open a nonfiction book. However, the uneven pace kept this meandering story from being a non-stop page turner.