Melissa Mayhue – Highlander’s curse

The eighth book in the Daughters of the Glen series, published March 2011.



When Colin MacAlister is cursed by the Faerie Queen and ends up in the bed of a twenty-first-century woman – who also happens to be the most beautiful creature he’s ever laid eyes on – he’s torn between anger and lust. Colin is determined to see Scotland free of English control and must return to the fourteenth century, yet he cannot forget the woman who haunts his dreams and stirs him with scorching desire.
Abigail Porter can’t believe her luck. After making a wish to find her soul mate, she wakes up to find a gorgeous man in her bed! Can he really be a medieval Highlander summoned by her Faerie Magic, however? It seems crazy, but when Abby discovers someone wants to enslave her because of her Faerie heritage, she agrees to flee with Colin to 1306 Scotland to avoid capture. Thwarting danger at every turn, Abby and Colin surrender to an irresistible passion. But is the magic of true love powerful enough to save them?


Saying goodbye to her two best friends one night, being slightly drunk, they each tell their heartwishes. One wants to become pregnant with twins, the other wants to become engaged so she needs her boyfriend to ask her once again, and Abby wants to find her Soulmate, even though she claims not to need a man in her life. A green light appears, and somehow, those wishes are coming true!
Abby wakes up the next morning in the arms of a gorgeous, and naked, man. Was she that drunk that she doesn’t remember picking up a stranger in the bar when she left last night?
To her disappointment, the man calls his cousin to pick him up, and he disappears out of her life. Well, good ridden. She has to prepare for a new job, the chance of her lifetime! She has been chosen to go to Scotland for an archaeological dig. She has wanted to go there forever, since she has been dreaming of finding a centuries old treasure there. If only her new boss, Jonathan, wouldn’t act so much like he was interested in her for more than business …

Colin MacAlister is determined to rid Scotland of the English for good. He despises the Faery Magic in their family, seeing only the bad things that happened because of it, and not the love and Soulmates that people have found through it. He is kind of obsessed with finding people who can tell the future, to help him and his King in their battles.
But one day, Colin angers the Faery Queen, and she curses him with the ability to hear the screams of all the souls looking for their mates. Finding true love and a Soulmate is infinite more important than winning a battle, men will keep fighting. This curse will only end when he himself finds his Soulmate, and that will not happen in this lifetime!
And so Colin wakes up, hearing all the anguish from the torn souls in the vicinity. It takes him a good while to learn how to shut them out, so he can be in company again. And then, just before an important battle, he is ripped out of his world, and dumped in the 21st century, in the bed of a very pretty woman.
When she doesn’t seem to know how he got there, he leaves, but he keeps dreaming of her. Having no way of returning to his own time, he goes to Wyddecol, and trains to be a Guardian. Then he dreams Abby is in danger, and he just has to go to her. And so he joins her in Scotland, where he rescues her just in time from her boss, who is a Nuadian Fey, and who wants to keep her for her blood, which gives him access to the Magic again. The only way to escape, is to go back in time, to Colin’s home. And there Colin is determined to save his king, and to tell him of what is to come. He has learned much about what happened in Scotland after he left. He doesn’t care he is not allowed to change the future, for him it is not yet the future, but the present, and he wants Scotland free of the English.
He has no idea yet that Abby is his very own Soulmate, and he should be happy with her, instead of seeing her as an obstacle to his goals. She cannot go back to her own time without him, and he wants to stay where he is. And Abby just cannot live in medieval Scotland, never mind she is an archaeologist (or almost).
In order to be allowed to travel together to his clansmen and his king, Colin and Abby are married. And somehow, Abby will have to convince him not to change the future. Who knows what will happen when he does. Men who should die that battle will live, and vice versa. Who knows what evil will come of that. Maybe Abby herself will not even be born in that future.

Neither of them wants to give in to the other, both denying their love for each other. But in the end, one of them will have to choose. And then there is Jonathan/Flynn, who came back with them and is still after Abby and her Fae Magic …


Another good book by Melissa Mayhue. Don’t you just love that cover? I did not have much reading time lately, so it took me much longer than usual to finish.
Colin is a really stubborn Scot, but he did want to take good care of Abby. It sure took him long enough to find out she was his own Soulmate. A good thing there are mothers …
He is obsessed with winning the war, and he is the best warrior there is. He will warn his king of the treachery and save him and his clansmen. And if he has to take Abby with him, so be it. It won’t be comfortable for her. But Abby is just as stubborn as Colin is, and when she finally learns that the magic won’t send her back without him, she will stuck at his side as much as possible. Of course, the journey is a good way to really get to know each other. The danger is in the end was very suspenseful, and I liked what happened there.

I like Melissa Mayhue’s writing style, the characters she creates, and the fact that in a series, you get to meet the previous main characters again. There are no really funny scenes, but still there is some humor, and some small love scenes. And a few interrupted ones.

I shudder at the thought of having to live back in 1306 myself, no toilets, no toiletpaper, no shower, and most important: no chocolate! So yes, I agree with Abby, she needs to go back home and finish her degree.


8 stars