Royal Highlander #2
“Shopping for a ribbon for your hat is an activity… Do you actually consider speaking at a protest rally … simply another activity?”
Niall Campbell
It makes me feel like a bad fan when I have to say that I did not enjoy a book by one of my favorite authors. Unfortunately, that is the case with Highland Jewel. Jim and Nikoo made Edinburgh in 1820 come alive, but Maisie, Niall, and their relationship never clicked for me.
Highland Jewel is the second book in the Royal Highlander series, and it can be read stand-alone. I do recommend reading Highland Crown first as characters and plot elements do carry forward from it. Highland Jewel starts before the events of Highland Crown in Edinburgh, where the protests are ramping up, and the government is cracking down.
Unbeknownst to her family, Maisie is heavily involved in the reform movement, to the point of founding the Edinburgh Female Reform Society with her best friend, Fiona. Her attitude towards her family made her a very unlikeable character to me for a large part of the book. She looks at her family contemptuously for not seeing past the docile persona that she shows them. She also firmly rebuffs her sister and her step-sister when they show concern for her. Niall calls her out on it, and she blithely tells him that she won’t inform her sister about her activities because she doesn’t want her to worry. Multiple near misses with the local militia and government agents are not enough to check her attitude.
She receives a harsh wake-up call when Fiona is dragged off the street by agents right in front of her. This scene is one of the most harrowing of the book and a true masterwork by Jim and Nikoo. The helplessness that Maisie feels comes to life as people walk by and pretend that nothing is happening even as she shrieks and calls for aid. The aftermath leads Maisie to re-evaluate her relationship with her sisters and begins her evolution into a character that I like.
Oddly enough, as Maisie becomes more likable, Niall becomes more frustrating and unlikeable. Niall is a Royal Highlander who resigned his commission after seeing the brutal response to Irish protesters by the government. This first-hand view drives his concern for his sister, Fiona, and her best friend, Maisie. He chides them for putting themselves in danger, encourages Maisie to tell her family, and rescues her when she attracts the attention of government agents. After his fears are born out by Fiona’s kidnapping, his personality starts on a downward spiral. Understandably, he would be standoffish after learning that Fiona was taken to get to him, but his actions after they’re reunited really irk me. He lacks any of the warmth from earlier in the book. At one point, Niall blatantly changes the subject instead of answering Maisie’s questions or even trying to allay her fears. He could have said that he will tell her everything as soon as he can and that would have changed my entire opinion of how his personality had changed. I never warmed back up to him before the end of the book.
Plotwise, there is almost too much going on in this book. Protests, work with the reformation society, Catherine’s plotline, fallout from Fiona’s kidnapping, and so on reduces the romance between Maisie and Niall to a subplot in their own book. The time that they have together is often marred by Maisie’s attitude. In one scene, she archly informs Niall that her brother-in-law had forbidden her to have any more interaction with him. The specter of hiding their relationship hangs over their relationship in Edinburgh.
Intrigue, civil unrest, and running for your life is not able to save this book from the lead characters and their secret relationship. One shining star is Morrigan breaking out as a character later in the book. She’s a spitfire, and I’m looking forward to reading more about her in Highland Sword.
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