My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Barbara’s rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Series: The Brothers of Wolf Isle #3
Publication Date: 8/22/22
Period: Tudor England – 1547

I have been looking forward to the release of this book for a while now. I’ve read the first two books in the series and they were non-stop action and excitement with a romance just as exciting as the action parts. Not this one. It is a nice read but is missing the action and excitement of the other books. In the first two books, the pirate Claude Jandeau was a fierce, mighty, nasty pirate who stole away innocent women and children and sold them into slavery to men who wanted them. He is bound and determined to get the Montgomerie sisters into his nasty hands. So far, the only thing that has stood in his way is the Macquarie brothers. One of the brothers married the older Montgomerie sister and now, since their father’s death, she wants to bring her sisters to Wolf Isle to live with her. Callum and Drostan (twins) Macquarie were dispatched to Hawick to accompany the four sisters back to the isle. When they arrived, two of the sisters had left for England. Drostan accompanied the two sisters (Kat and Agnes) who were at Hawick back to Wolf Isle and Callum continued to Sudeley Castle in England to retrieve Anna and Dorothia (Dora) and then accompany them north to Wolf Isle.

Since the pirate Jandeau escaped before he could be hanged, the Montgomerie ladies cannot be left unprotected. Anna and Doro are in the employ of the Dowager Queen Katherine Parr Seymour as Ladies to Princess Elizabeth. When Anna refuses to leave, Callum knew he had to stay until he could convince her to leave.

We spent several months or about 70% of the book at Sudeley Castle with Callum trying to convince Anna and dealing with the English who looked down upon him. This part went on much, much too long. When they were deceived and ended up in the hands of Jandeau, it was a tad more exciting, but not by much. Jandeau was a mere shadow of himself and really didn’t pose much of a threat at all.

I enjoyed the book; it just wasn’t the exciting, page-turning, swashbuckling read I had expected. I wanted some exciting cross-country chases, or sword fights onboard a pirate ship or … something. It did get livelier; it just wasn’t that bone-tingling excitement from the previous books.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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