The Immortal Highlander

Review posted here: http://offbeatvagabond.blogspot.com/2012/04/book-review-immortal-highlander.html

Immortal Highlander follows the story of Adam Black. Adam is Fae, a very powerful Fae prince who was the queen's favorite. Being a favorite has its advantages since Adam pretty much got away with everything. Well not today. The Queen is tired of Adam's crap, so as a punishment, not only is he forced to stay in the mortal world, but he is also invisible to everyone...except to Gabrielle. Gabrielle is a smart attorney living on her own. She was raised on the terrible stories of what the Fae have done. She hates that she can see them because she knows of the tricks they play. But she hasn't come across any such as Adam. He is more than show more interested in Gabrielle and she is scared because she might be returning those same feelings.

I had to get this on audiobook which is both a good and bad thing. Good thing: I love Moning and knew she would make Adam's story unforgettable. Bad thing: I drove in my car while listening to this and I got so distracted, I almost caused a wreck or two. Any regrets? Hell no! If Phil Gigante doesn't have the same effect on you, you are a corpse. His voice isn't just sexy, it is sex.

It is hard to believe this is the same Adam Black from Beyond the Highland Mist. He was quite cruel. But here, I was melting like ice cream. He definitely had a lot of passion (by the boatloads) and a lot of personality. You can't help but love him. Gabrielle was amazing. She definitely had a mind of her own and wasn't putty in Adam's hands from the get-go. Their chemistry was out of this world. I love when she realizes she wants him and how jealous she got when other women looked at him. The lies she spread had me laughing so hard there were tears in my eyes. To be honest, I would have done the same thing.

I loved this. I love the journey Adam and Gabrielle had to endure to get Adam to his normal self and the trials he had to face. One being Darroc. Given I started the Fever series before the Highlander series, I knew I didn't like him then. This just confirms that more. He is out to rule the Fae world and thereby controlling the Mortal world (we Fever fans know how that went). But I love that this story shows us a different side of Adam though. That he isn't like his cruel and heartless brethren. He may be as old as time itself, but this was about him growing up and it made me love him more. Same for Gabrielle. Through Adam, she learns that she can't just accept everything she has been told. She learns so much about Adam and Fae in general.

I could talk about this book all day. I was expecting great and it surpassed that and more. Adam is my second favorite of all the men in this series so far. Drustan from Kiss of the Highlander is my favorite who makes an appearance in this along with his twin Dageus. This book is full of passion, love, laughs, and sacrifice. I still can't believe I nearly overlooked this series. High recommendation if you haven't read it yet and an even higher recommendation for the audiobook version. show less

The Immortal Highlander
4 Stars

One of the highlights is the connection to Moning's Fever series. While I am not a rabid fan of the books, primarily due to Mac's vacuousness and the excessively drawn out writing style, the detailed world building, engrossing Fae invasion plot and Barrons (*swoon*) make them worthwhile.

The insight in The Immortal Highlander into the backstory of a Sidhe-seer family and the history behind Darroc's relationship with Adam are particularly intriguing and add to my appreciation of both Adam and Gabby's story and Mac's struggles in the spin-off.

Another excellent aspect of the book is the return of Gwen and Drustan, and Chloe and Daegus from the previous two installments - it was great catching up with their show more romances.

Now to Adam and Gabby. To be honest, I was expecting more from Adam's redemption. Yes, he is gorgeous, sensual and sexy but he doesn't seem to learn humility or what it really means to be human until the last few pages. There should have been a more gradual development and recognition of his humanity. Gabrielle, on the other hand, is my type of heroine, full of spice and sass. She definitely gives Adam a run for his money and their interactions are wonderful.

Overall, this is a fun read but it doesn't quite succeed in knocking Daegus off his pedestal. show less

First of all, I liked this book MUCH more than I thought I would. Not that I thought it would be bad, I just haven't really been an Adam Black fan, so I couldn't see myself getting to invested in his story. Boy was I wrong...about Adam and about how much I'd enjoy this books. There are volumes about Adam that we didn't get to see before. Learning about his more "human" side was intriguing. Having read the Fever books prior to the Highlander books, I was also happy to see a Sidhe Seer! And enter Darroc??? OMG! Then to top it all off, we get to see more of the MacKeltar twins!!! All of this added up to a fast paced, action and adventure filled, paranormal romance!

I love Adam Black. I've loved him in all the previous novels, and quite enjoy him as a character. Though I think I like the idea of him more than the actual reality.

And the plot of this romance is pretty interesting. Adam's invisible punishment, Darroc hunting him, Gabrielle the sidge seer. Interesting stuff. There's just not a whole lot of. Mostly it's Gabrielle moping over her life or Adam thinking about all the sexy things he wants to do to her.

The climax of the plot also was severely lacking. It just ended. Yay.

I don't want to go on some feminist tirade or anything because it's not really my style, but I'm so sick of so many aspects of typical romance novels. They're literally all the same. All the females are petite, voluptuous show more virgins who have no money and typically no family to speak of. They're all alone with no one to care for them.

And the men are huge, confident, NOT virgins, full of wealth (legitimate or otherwise), and full of love.

What about the middle-class six-foot woman with a flat chest? Or the virgin girl who doesn't somehow know all about sex despite being a virgin? What about the virgin man? Maybe a love story that didn't involve being treated to expensive clothes and gifts and jewelry and food? Money isn't that important.

Maybe I'm just the wrong audience for a romance novel? But come on, guys, sometimes I want a happy love story too. Someone write an original one for goodness sake.

Also if I ever hear or read the word "sumptuous" again I might stab the culprit. show less

This book wasn't as good as the 2 before in the series. I enjoyed the storyl-line however all the "recaps" got a bit tiresome, considering I had just finished reading the previous books in the series, I don't think I needed to know all that was told, even if I hadn't read those books, they gave away the plot of them and I would have rather been intrigued to read them - just my thoughts there. Other than that I liked Adam and Gabby. Gabby cracked me up a few times. I started to see a bit of the "before" and stuff leading up to the fever series.. which was kinda interesting.

Adam Black was punished by the fairy queen for embarrassing her in front of the counsel of other fairies. For showing the queen up, Adam is stripped of almost all of his fae powers, made mortal, and made invisible to humans and all other fae is made invisible to him. So Adam’s stuck walking around in present day USA, playing tricks on mortals. Like stealing their food in restaurants or taking old ladies purses for the amusement of seeing their confused expressions. But even that has gotten quite boring for him, so now he’s pretty much just pissed and trying to think of a way to get the queen to give him back his powers.

One night, while Adam’s pouting on a bench about his predicament, Gabrielle O’Callaghan stumbles upon him. show more Gabby has THE SIGHT! She can see the fae people, but because her kind is usually captured and/or killed by the fae for this, she’s been trained to pretend that she doesn’t see them. But when she catches a glimpse of Adam lounging around on the bench outside of her work, all her years of ignoring the fae flies out the window because she just stands there and stares at the purrty fairy. After a huge description of Adam’s gorgeousness (I swear it went on for 3 pages) he finally takes notice that a pretty woman is staring at him.

As usual Moning gives a great hero, but a less than great heroine. Gabby has too many pity parties and idiot moments in this book for me to really like her, but I at least understood why she was doing everything she did. And most of the time I couldn’t quite blame her for doing something stupid or moping around, because if I was in that situation I’d be tempted to do the same thing. As for Adam, he’s a little darker than Moning’s other heroes, but I still would’ve liked him to be a bit more underhanded or something. But I still really loved Adam in this book and was glad to see that his personality didn’t change into something completely different that what we had saw in the previous books.

One thing that I really didn’t like about this book was that Adam doesn’t remain fae. I didn’t want him human, because I liked fae Adam so much. I liked knowing he’d probably pop up in every book in the series and cause some trouble. But now, there shall be no more of that. Also, what the hell was up with him getting a soul at the end?! I knew it was coming, Moning wasn’t about to end it by saying “And they lived to be 100 until they both croaked. Gabby went to heaven and Adam just… died.” But I seriously didn’t understand why Adam got a soul and the other fae that got turned human didn’t. Or any other fae who’d get turned human wouldn’t get one. I DON’T UNDERSTAND! It was too convenient for me. I wanted an explanation as to why. And how boring is it that our heroine got a white picket fence kind ending? I didn’t think it suited Adam very much or even Gabby for that matter. They practically got turned into the nuclear family. show less

4.5 Stars.

I loved it. If certain elements had been more spot on, this could have been a 5 star for me.
I very much could have used more suspense/action with the bad guys.

In ways it was a slow burn. But the heat and adult steamy goodness was there.

Loved Adam and Gabrielle.
Not sure how I feel about the 'Soul' thing.

I think I have more questions than ever about the 'Fae' in this series.

There is also bits of humor throughout the story and I love that.

I will be continuing this series & start her Fever series in the future. It is connected to this series.