Review / Release Blitz: Beyond the Thistles (The Highlands #1) by Samantha Young

A grumpy vs sunshine, age-gap, romantic suspense set in the Scottish Highlands.

Beyond the Thistles by Samantha Young is now live!

It’s been a long time since Walker Ironside left behind Scotland and the memories that haunt him. Yet after years of traveling the world as a bodyguard, Walker misses his homeland enough to return. To a village in the Scottish Highlands that plays host to an exclusive members-only club, Ardnoch Estate. If not happy, Walker is content working with the elite security at the club and maintaining his bachelor lifestyle. What he doesn’t need is distraction in the form of the enticing but too-young newcomer, single mother Sloane Harrow.

Sloane never imagined she’d get pregnant at sixteen. Or that a decade later she’d escape from California with her daughter, Callie, to start over in the Scottish Highlands. Hidden and safe from Callie’s dangerous father, Sloane is satisfied with their new lives. Her daughter is happy. Sloane has a stable job, a quaint cottage, a passion for baking that might just be turning into a business, and a huge crush on brooding security guard Walker Ironside. Unfortunately, the grumpy Scot seems immune to Sloane’s charm, but she can’t help but try to seduce him with cupcakes and baked treats whenever the opportunity arises.

However, when someone arrives in Ardnoch intent on destroying Sloane’s life, Walker is the first to step forward to protect her and Callie. Even if it means giving into temptation and awakening his own demons. Because in doing so, Walker faces failing not only to shield Sloane from her past, but to safeguard her against his own.

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MY REVIEW

Sloane and her daughter have found a new life in Scotland. There's a broody grump of a hot Scot, Walker, who's caught her eye, but he's beyond unavailable it seems, so she's content (but still as always, has one eye always cautiously looking over her shoulder) to live her new life baking, and making new friends in the small community she has found herself in. But she still can't help but think of the man who seems so protective of those he cares about, and wonder if she could ever be included in that small group. Will Walker ever open himself up to her? Or will he keep living with the guilt that keeps his heart closed for business?

Walker came here with his friend, as his protector, but now he's married and no longer needs Walker. When a beautiful ray of sunshine and her adorable daughter come into his life, he's unprepared for the havoc they both wreak on his heart. But he's lived so long with pain and guilt that he doesn't know how to open himself up to love, to anything resembling happiness, that he keeps pushing her away. But if he can't find a way to let her in, he might be too late, especially when her past comes around to find her again.

Samantha Young's characters are some of my favorite in all of fiction. Her heroines are always so relatable, with big hearts and strong as steel backbones. I think Sloane may be in my top 5 favorite of those heroines. She and her daughter are so sweet, and so deserving of someone with so much love to give, with the alpha protective tendencies that keep his new family safe and secure. I love the way they healed together, and opened themselves up to the joy and happiness they so deserved.

Meet Samantha

Samantha Young is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She's been nominated for several Goodreads Choice Awards. Samantha writes adult contemporary and paranormal romance, YA urban fantasy and YA contemporary fiction and is currently published in 31 countries.

She resides in Scotland.

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