Vellum Voyages

2 helms

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A bit of a dud this one :( I haven't read the previous books in the series and there were some strong references to them but it was easy enough to follow the previous character's stories. I was very bored and distracted throughout the book and Fia and Niall really didn't hold my attention.

Fia dreams of a passionate and everlasting true love, just like Laird Brodie & Lady Arabella, her employers. She is kidnapped by outlaw Niall Corbett and taken deep into the highland hills with his band of men. There is more to Niall/Ian than meets the eye, as he is on his own secret mission from the King and kidnapping Fia complicates matters, but he had to do it to save her from the nefarious intentions of the other outlaws. Fia can't help but be drawn to Niall as he is nothing like what he portrays and she sees through his rough facade to the nobleman beneath. Even though her mind says run, her heart whispers something else entirely and she longs to discover the real Niall.

Fia comes across as quite bland and boring and there wasn't anything memorable about her except for her dreams of love. I can relate to Fia's sweet dreams of wanting true love. Who doesn't want that? But that's about all I can relate to. She wants her story to happen exactly the same way as it happened for Brodie and Arabella (Brodie kidnapped Arabella and they both fell in love- first book in the series) and her mind just seems to be fixated onto this scenario, so I didn't feel like this was original enough for Fia's story. I do love a "kidnapped and falling in love with your captor, without major Stockholm Syndrome scenarios", but I just didn't believe the passion and the love between Fia and Niall. Niall also comes across as boring and nothing really stood out about him except that he was leading a double life. There wasn't an explanation on why the King had such a stranglehold on him, his family and his titles. Explanations and reasonings were all over the place which really made for distracting and uninteresting reading.

Fia and Niall were nothing special in my eyes, I wasn't lost in their love and there were some interesting references to Niall's male parts which felt out of place!

*Thank-you Terri Brisbin, Netgalley & Harlequin Historical for the ARC.