Book Review: Just a Highland Fling

Just a Highland Fling

By Naina Kumar

Just a Highland Fling has it all: this contemporary romance novel opens with a strangers-to lovers, one-night-stand starting in a cozy pub in Aberdeen, Scotland. The novel also features a runaway bride, a Scottish road trip, and a visit to the Isle of Skye with lots of romantic interludes in between. I really enjoyed this book and you should move it to the top of your TBR for this summer!

Neelu is a reality TV producer who travels a lot and doesn’t have many significant personal connections. When Neelu goes to her estranged father's wedding in Scotland, she is alone at a bar the night before and meets Jacob. Jacob just so happens to be a smart and sexy poetry professor with a cardigan sweater and cute lil glasses. Plus he wears a kilt, bagpipes, AND he can empathize and be emotionally vulnerable. What does she notice first? His beautiful eyes and the elbow patches on his professorial cardigan of course. Turns out he has other talents and they're not just writing poetry and playing the bagpipes.

The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smoothly?

 A one-night stand turned into a runaway bride situation and Jacob, Neelu, and her dad go on a road trip to find Maggie, her father's betrothed. As they head to the Isle of Skye (planned site of the honeymoon), Jacob and Neelu move closer emotionally, and Neelu might even resolve the issues in the relationship with her father.

BUT can one night and then another and another actually turn into something real?

Overall, I loved this one! It was heartfelt, cute, and steamy with some depth of characterization, too. I loved how Neelu navigated her impulses to potentially close off to big feelings, because girl, I related to that, but she and Jacob give each other a chance. There were several plot threads that I enjoyed following, not to mention the ambiance of the Scottish setting. The descriptions were vivid and made me want to rent a car and drive around the Highlands (which admittedly, I already wanted to do ever since watching Outlander, iykyk) 

Was this kind of a second-chance romance?

In a way, Just a Highland Fling was a second-chance love story in more ways than one, because Jacob and Neelu had to give each other a second change after their no-strings-planned night together. AND Neelu had the opportunity to reconnect with her dad, after they’d had an estranged relationship for years.

I also liked the play on words with the title! Did you know a Highland Fling is a dance?

Thank you to Dell and Ballantine and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.