The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning

Adam Black is back, but to say that things aren't all that great for him is a bit of an understatement. He meddled one too many times in human affairs and has managed to incur the wrath of Queen Aoibheal, Queen of the Tuatha de Danaan also known as the Fae. As punishment, the Queen has made him human, but unfortunately he is invisible to humans, or at least he thinks he is until he is sitting on a bench in Cincinnati and sees Gabrielle O'Callaghan watching him.

Gabrielle is the last in a line of Sidhe-seers - people who have always been able to see the fae. She is also a lonely and broke student, studying to become a lawyer whilst maintaining a job as an intern in a less than stellar law firm.

Adam Black has made appearances in previous books by Karen Marie Moning, where he has been portrayed as quite a negative presence, but in this book we meet the real Adam Black. He willingly admits that he is no angel, but he does live by his own code of conduct. Amongst his standards include rules that he will never force a woman to come to him, and he is loyal to the Queen.

Adam needs to contact the Queen to get her to reverse his state back to that of fae, but first he needs to escape from ruthless enemies who would love to kill Adam whilst he is in his human state. After meeting Gabrielle, Adam begins a slow and steady seduction, wining and dining her as only Adam Black knows how. Eventually though, it becomes a frantic race across time and place to get to where Adam can gain the attention of the Queen and save her from betrayal by those closest to her.

I have read all of Karen Marie Moning's books before this, and really enjoyed them. In fact I would go so far as to say that she was my first autobuy romance author, although I do still wait for the books to come out in paperback before I buy them. I also enjoyed this one, but not as much as I have some of the others, in particular Kiss of the Highlander and The Dark Highlander. Having said that, I actually preferred Gabrielle as a heroine, particularly to Gwen. She was smart and relatively grounded for a woman who sees fae wherever she goes.

However, after all the anticipation to read Adam's story, it was ultimately not as satisfying as I wanted it to be. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but I think maybe the idea of Adam just taking whatever he wanted, whenever he needed it kind of irritated me...How many pairs of designer leather trousers does one man need after all..and also that there seemed to be a lot of information about the fae and sidhe-seers. Whilst this information was interesting and may even have been necessary, it isn't what keeps me engrossed in a story. Whatever it was, it meant that I wasn't fully engaged in the story, to the point that I actually had time to wonder about things like the mechanics of the sexual shenanigans and does anyone really look that great in leather trousers?

It was great to catch up with Drustan and Gwen, and Dageus and Chloe who play a pivotal role in this book, and to find out what they have been up to since we last met them.

Overall this wasn't the best book I've read from the author, although it was still enjoyable. I have already put a request in for the newest Highlander book by her, called Spell of the Highlander, so hopefully that won't take too long to come in at the library!

Rating 3.5/5