“Izzy McBride had never in a million years expected to inherit an actual castle from her great uncle Bill but here she was, in the run up to Christmas, Monarch of her own Glen – a very rundown glen in need of a lot of TLC if her dream of turning it into a boutique bed and breakfast was to come true.

But when Izzy’s eccentric mother rents a room to enigmatic thriller author Ross Adair and the Scottish snow starts to settle like the frosting on a Christmas cake, it’s a race to get the castle ready before they’re all snowed in for the holidays.”

Quite frankly, after reading The Christmas Castle in Scotland (Amazon), I’m surprised I don’t read more books like this because I just adored it! I’ve never been to Scotland but could swear I have because I was just transported there through this book.

You don’t have to have read the other books in the Romantic Escapes series to read The Christmas Castle in Scotland. From my understanding, Izzy, the protagonist in this story, was introduced briefly in the previous book, but that’s just a way to tie the stories together. I was happy to realize that I already have another one of the books of the series on my kindle and will be diving in at first chance.

As for the story, if you like a Hallmark Christmas Movie, this is the perfect sort of book for you. A dilapidated castle in Scotland, a brooding but hot author, a meddling mother, and an independent woman recently wounded by love and not looking for it, all makes for the perfect cozy romance.

The descriptions of the settings were wonderful, even when they describe snow (yuck! I’ve got enough of that in real life), and Izzy is a trained chef so there’s a lot of concentration on food. Although, if I were to be perfectly honest, Scottish people must eat a lot of seafood, which I don’t care for, so descriptions of lobsters and prawns just didn’t do it for me earlier in the story. But as the story gets closer to Christmas, I wish I knew some of the recipes to incorporate into my repertoire. I had some idea that meals in England and Scotland served different dishes than in America, but this book really opened my eyes as to how different our meals are!

As for the romance, it’s good clean fun, with no explicit sex scenes, which is a plus for this middle-aged lady. Bodice-ripping and ravaging just aren’t my jam anymore. And the inevitable conflict that pulls the lovers apart was predictable but handled in a way that still made it enjoyable to read. There’s also a sub-plot involving missing sapphires hidden somewhere in the castle that I figured out early on but didn’t detract from the story.

Overall, if you need a cozy romance to read this holiday season and want to learn more about the Scottish Highlands and gourmet cooking, this book is for you. I can’t wait to read the other books in the series. Highly recommend! I’m happy to see that right now the book is only $2.99 on Kindle, as are several others in the series. Check it out here and here!

I received and eARC from NetGalley and One More Chapter Book Publishers in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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