Paula Quinn’s Scottish romance A Highlander Never Surrenders takes all the passions and intensity of romance Laird of the Mist and adds even more precise attention to detail. She adds complementary secondary characters that give her new romance a richness and depth. Placing her characters in chaotic yet intriguing time periods, Paula Quinn makes history and romance come alive as passions, both personal and political collide, setting hearts ablaze.

Paula Quinn sets her romance during a tumultuous period of Scottish history when factions of Scotland’s Third Civil War re-emerged. Oliver Cromwell has died and General Monck, a man who had served Cromwell and Parliament throughout the civil wars, now aligns himself with forces seeking the restoration of Charles II. A Highlander Never Surrenders opens with a vignette into this fascinating explosive time with a vision that focuses on two men and a woman caught up in the political drama of the period. Graham Grant, the first in command of the MacGregor clan, sits in a pub with an unlikely friend, Robert Campbell, the Earl of Argyll discussing their order from Monck to find the Royalist rebel Connor Stuart. Two unlikely friends, Royalist and Highlander Graham and Presbyterian, or Roundhead, Robert Campbell join forces seeking to save Scotland from anarchy. Captured by Graham and his forces, Claire Stuart knows she must hide her identity and link to the royal family from the Roundhead men she sees before her. With her brother Connor dead, Claire has one goal and one goal alone --- to save her sister Anne from the treacherous Monck. Graham knows he must stop Claire from her plot against Monck so he proposes a compromise, getting Claire to agree to join forces with him in exchange for his assistance rescuing her sister. Political intrigue infuses this romance as alliances are not so easily discerned and Claire's brother and sister have become pawns in a political clash between Roundheads and Royalists.

The heroine Claire is one feisty woman! Taught by her brother to fight, Claire is a woman who carries a sword not a broom. She would rather fight than sew and when it comes to love, Claire is just as tempestuous and passionate. Commander Grant, the hero, is just as full of fire, tempered with just enough insight and patience to get what he wants. Thoughtful and knowing in battle, women are mere diversions, to be enjoyed and left for more important political aims. Grant certainly meets his match in Claire, a woman as single-minded and devoted to politics and her family. When these two come together, love is combustible! A secondary pair complements these two perfectly -- Robert a man as chivalrous and honorable as Galahad and a man who respects the law and Claire's sister Anne, a true lady in heart as well as lineage.

A Highlander Never Surrenders strikes the reader with its beautiful use of language, dynamic dialogue and amazing detail. In one scene where Paula Quinn describes the eyes of a potential enemy, readers feel the danger in an almost tactile way as if looking into his eyes. Paula Quinn carefully orchestrates intrigue as one small detail, talk of a letter or a certain phrase, emerges later in a more ominous circumstance whose framework has been carefully planned earlier. A Highlander Never Surrenders is a sexy romance, as much for the subtle facial expressions and dialogue between the hero and heroine as the kisses and beyond. Passionate emotions abound as historical politics, honor, betrayals and irresistible love draw unlikely forces together in a dangerous mission. Paula Quinn brings A Highlander Never Surrenders to a conclusion with a beautiful, beautiful ending with a love just as fiery as the first sparks.

Paula Quinn’s A Highlander Never Surrenders is so full of emotion and intrigue that it makes this reader want to read about Scottish history in much more detail. Paula Quinn’s historical romance makes a reader feel history, not just think it. Readers feel the political and personal stakes at risk when love and politics mix during this uncertain interregnum period of Scottish history. A Highlander Never Surrenders inspires late night reading!

Publisher: Warner Forever  (August 2008)