How to Meet Your Match on the Moors: A Scottish Regency Romance by Elizabeth Cole

Tracy’s Rating: 3/3.5 of 5 stars

Series: A Lady’s Guide to Scotsmen #2

Release Date: April 21, 2026

Elspeth McGregor is stunned when her father announces that she it to be married in a matter of days to a man she has never met. He assures her that Struan MacInnes approached him for her hand and is anxious to marry her as soon as possible. Elspeth is an eternal optimist and is eager to make her marriage successful when she first sees her groom, she is surprised by his size and when she notices his scars, she is filled with compassion. She doesn’t understand why man who wanted to marry her, seemed determined to keep her at a distance, but Elspeth is a proverbial ray of sunshine and manages to worm her way into her new husband’s heart and gives hers to him in return. She believes that she has finally found her happily ever after, until she learns the truth of their marriage.

After years of war and months of recovery, Struan MacInnes wants nothing more than to return home to the highlands, but while in Edinburgh, he needs to find James MacGregor and insist that he repay the loan Struan made to him six years ago. But his meeting with MacGregor doesn’t go as planned and instead of getting his money back, he ends up with a wife. A very tempting and cheerful wife and no matter how hard he tries to keep her at an arm’s length, she manages to charm him just like everyone else who meets her. Soon he can imagine his life without her and is more determined than ever to keep her from learning of how their marriage came to be, but when truth comes out and she is hurt, it seems like any chance for happily ever after seems lost.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this book – I loved the story right up until Elspeth learns the truth about their marriage and she changes – drastically. I completely understood her pain and anger, but she reacted completely out of character and seemed intent on targeting all that anger solely on Struan and seems to completely absolve her father from any wrongdoing. From that point on the story just seemed to fall apart for me, I felt that she was being irrational and while she had a right to be upset, she could have handled things differently. Eventually, they find their way to their HEA, but it took too long and I stopped caring. Overall, the book was okay, there is a lot of emotion, a bit of intrigue, steamyish love scenes, great secondary characters and it does end with a HEA, but it is not a book I would read a second time. This is the second book in the series, but I think the first book runs concurrently with this one, so I had no problem starting with this book.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *