Review: The Highland Dragon’s Lady by Isabel Cooper + Giveaway

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: paranormal romance, historical romance
Series: Highland Dragon #2
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Date Released: December 2, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Regina Talbot-Jones has always known her rambling family home was haunted. She also knows her brother has invited one of his friends to attend an ill-conceived séance. She didn’t count on that friend being so handsome… and she certainly didn’t expect him to be a dragon.

Scottish Highlander Colin MacAlasdair has hidden his true nature for his entire life, but the moment he sets eyes on Regina, he knows he has to have her. In his hundreds of years, he’s never met a woman who could understand him so thoroughly… or touch him so deeply. Bound by their mutual loneliness, drawn by the fire awakening inside of them, Colin and Regina must work together to defeat a vengeful spirit – and discover whether their growing love is powerful enough to defy convention.

My Review:

I enjoyed the first book in this series, Legend of the Highland Dragon, quite a lot (see review) and this second book is even more fun than the first one, in spite of the fact that there isn’t much more info about that Legend, and that there isn’t a whole lot of dragon. I was having too much fun to care.

That’s because the hero and heroine in this one, Colin MacAlasdair and Regina Talbot-Jones, are incredibly fun characters themselves (Stephen and Mina in Legend were a bit on the serious side)

Colin has spent the 110 years of his existing mostly trying to keep from being bored. In the present Victorian era, he’s playing the role of younger and slightly disreputable son of nobility to the hilt. It allows him to have a bit of a reputation and travel wherever the mood strikes him.

As a member of the MacAlasdair clan, he even has access to his very own wings if he needs to travel a long distance in a short time. Colin, like his older brother Stephen, is a dragon-shifter.

Unlike Stephen, Colin has also dabbled a bit with magic. After all, the MacAlasdairs are living proof that there are more things in this world than science can rationally account for.

That’s both how Colin meets, and some of what he thinks, when he meets Regina Talbot-Jones. She’s usually referred to as Reggie, a name that fits her considerably better, especially considering that she meets Colin by climbing a tree down to the room that she believes is occupied by her brother.

Colin has come to Regina’s home on the trail of a ghost story told by her brother. Colin just expects a little entertainment, but instead he comes face to face with an all too real ghost. And Regina, who is also just a bit more than he expected.

And vice-versa. Reggie has a magicaly talent, she can see people’s memories when she touches them. Colin grabs her arm to keep her from falling, and she sees his memories of flying. She’s the first person who has discovered his secret (as opposed to being told after some preparation) in decades.

Reggie surprises Colin on every turn, not just with her talent, but also with her quick wit, her thoughtful intelligence, and her forthright courage.

She’s damned surprised that he’s a dragon. But when her father’s ill-advised seance rouses the estate’s malevolent ghost, Reggie and Colin need all the courage and resources they can muster to keep her from striking again. And again.

Escape Rating A-: Although the title of this book is The Highland Dragon’s Lady, it’s really a chilling ghost story with a romance to up the ante. If anything, it’s a descendant of those lovely old Gothic Romances, with lots of eerie atmosphere. The big change is that those old Gothics didn’t include sex.

Reggie and Colin definitely get around to indulging all of the delicious sparks they cause in each other. But this is a couple who seduce each other with clever words before they finally get between the sheets. Except its actually a hayloft, and the scene is delicious.

As Colin and Reggie court and spark (and spark), the investigation into the local ghost is serious enough to send a shiver up the spine. It’s not (thank goodness) a family ghost. Reggie’s parents bought the estate, ghost and all, about three years previous to the story. The ghost doesn’t care that they aren’t her family, all she wants are more victims, and she’s very clever about getting them.

Reggie and Colin have to work hard to save each other, and Reggie’s family, from everything that this malevolent ghost has to throw at them. Even a dragon needs a bit of help now and then, especially when the stakes are very, very high. And I love it when the heroine gets to rescue the hero!