Highlander’s Captive (Highlanders of the McCall Clan Book 2)

Highlander’s Captive is a must read! This is the second book in the McCall Clan Series. Barbara Bard has outdone herself with this novel. From the first page and throughout I was totally captivated by Catherine and Declan’s journey to the road of discovery of one’s self and one another. The scenes feel like you are one with the story. Throw in the Scottish Brogue, full of action and drama, danger, suspense, uncertainty, termoil, and spicy love scenes. This book will hold your attention to the fullest. Remarkable emotions and unforgettable characters. This story has a way of grabbing you the first few pages and then you can’t put the book down until the end. I loved revisiting old friends that you haven’t seen for a while. It was nice to catch up with them.

What an exciting read. It is full of danger, action, adventure, pride, prejudice, foolishness, first love and first romance. It took about three to four hours to read. On every page there was something new to learn. This is a continuance of Barbara’s previous book Drew. It is about the McCall Clan. Blair is the clan leader, Drew is his right-hand man and his brother. Declan is their younger cousin who is out to prove himself a man just like Blair and Drew. From the last book, Blair and Drew fell in love with two English women, Rosemary and Sarah. There are a couple of people who see this as a betrayal to the clan. Deirdre was nothing but trouble. She went around wanting to incite an uprising against Blair and Drew for taking English women as their beloved. Deirdre was motivated by spite and anger against Blair for an unjust slight against her that was not based on fact. When Deirdre could not sway Drew to her side, she started working on Declan. She would whisper evil thoughts in his ear. This incited rage in Declan that Blair and Drew were going against what it meant to be a Highlander. Highlanders were supposed to hate the English not bed them. Declan felt it was a danger to the whole clan to have Blair and Drew under the influence of these English women. Declan was convinced that Blair and Drew were under the English women’s spell and they were not putting the clan first and it would lead to clan’s ruin. Declan was not a boy and yet not a man, he was in between. He was still trying to prove himself worthy of the same respect Blair and Drew garnered. He feels that if they would only give him a chance, he would prove himself capable and worthy. Yet every time Declan tried to show his cousins that he was just as good as them, he would inevitably make youthful mistakes. He starts to realize that he does not have the same experience as his cousins. But he was still determined to win their respect no matter what. One way was to talk to Blair and Drew and show them the errors of their ways when it came to choosing the English women. He then had another opportunity to prove he was a warrior. The English Lord Harold Flynn declared war on the Highlanders. Declan slew many English soldiers. But after Drew dispatched Harold, that ended the war. Sarah, Drew’s beloved, asked him to take Catherine, Harold’s sister, back with them. Sarah had grown fond of Catherine and knew what fate awaited her back under her father’s rule. Catherine wanted to go back to her own home. She was unhappy that Sarah insisted she be brought along with them. Later all the Highlanders treated Drew like the hero he was. Declan became jealous and envious of his cousin Drew. He wanted that adoration and respect so badly he was blind to the fact that he was too young to have the experience that Drew or Blair had. In the meantime, Drew assigned him guard duty over their prisoner/guest Catherine. Catherine was not treated like a normal prisoner of war. She was treated with respect but guarded because she wanted to escape at any cost. Declan despised her just for being English and Catherine despised him for being a brutal, uncouth Highlander. They both were prejudice towards each other without getting to know each other. But that changes. Over a series of events that lead Catherine to escape and Declan to chase after her, they found they had protective feeling for each other. Declan found her in the nick of time and stopped three bad Highlanders from physically assaulting her. Declan fought against them. While fighting Declan remembered the lessons his father taught him. In today’s terms he need to be in the zone to win. Catherine feared for his life more than her own. Declan only wanted to protect Catherine. They had started to get to know each other when Declan was guarding her. They had deep insightful conversations. Both had the same feeling that they could talk to each other like no other. After Catherine and Declan were safe, Catherine talked Declan into taking her back to England to her home. She told him her father was going to wage war to recover her and to revenge Harold’s death. She told him he would be in a good position to take back vital information about her father and his plans back to Blair and Drew. This could and hopefully would save them. Declan was torn in two but decided that he had to put the clan first and so he did. On the way. they were captured by highway men. They were a mix of English and Scottish. They were working for the elder Lord Flynn. When they arrived at Catherine’s home, she betrayed Declan. He was put in the dungeon for the rest of his life. He had company. A man named Alastar. Then Catherine came to his rescue and broke him and Alastar out of the dungeon. Declan was bitter for what she had done. She explained she did not know what to do. If she had not, she would not have been able to rescue him. She owed him. They headed back to the Highlands to warn the clan of Flynn’s plan for war. On the way, Declan and Catherine consummated their love. Both of them had never been with anyone else. They were so in love and happy. Now Declan understood what his cousins were telling him. When they arrived at the castle, everyone noticed Declan holding Catherine’s hand. Declan relayed the new of the impending war that was coming and told them everything that transpired from the time he left to go after Catherine. He thought his cousins would be mad at him for all the blunders he caused but they were not. They embraced Declan and told him that they were proud of him. This filled Declan with pride and joy. The next morning Declan and Catherine went to see his father. Declan told his father about the war and about all his adventures with Catherine. His father told him that he had grown into the man he always knew he would be, kind, selfless and strong. Having learned the lessons of life from what he has been through. His father told him he was proud of him. This was an emotional moment between father and son. Declan would always treasure it. For the first time in his life he knew his true purpose, his true duty, and it was all thanks to Catherine. She made him into the man he had been destined to be. At the end of the book there is a link to an extended epilogue. It is worth the read.

Love these hot, sexy alpha Scottish men. Her brother is killed on the battlefield and she ends up in Scotland. She is guarded by Declan. It is his responsibility to do so and he forgets himself and drinks too much one night. She runs away and he is on to find her. But instead of agreeing to go back stubbornly heads on home. He either has to go with or go home. The thing is what happens when they get there. For all of this their feelings for each other grow. The cousins and others of Declan’s fit in so well with the story. I received a review copy and voluntarily review it.