MEET ME IN SCOTLAND  - Patience Griffin
A Kilts and Quilts Novel
Signet
ISBN: 978-0-451-46830-7
January 2015
Contemporary Romance

Gandiegow, Scotland  - Present Day

As Emma Castle's plane lands in Scotland she mulls over her immediate future. Brainy, straight-laced Emma, a marriage therapist, has just been fired over an interview she did that went viral. The daughter of two highly visible, prominent professionals, her mother, a leading sex therapist, and her father a renowned Hollywood marriage counselor, Emma's comment that she didn't think it unusual that some marriage therapists didn't believe in happily-ever-afters cost her her job and has infuriated her parents. So she has escaped to Scotland and the village where her best friend Claire lives. But her arrival in the midst of a blizzard gets off to a rocky start when Claire sends a friend to pick Emma up. Gabriel is well known to Emma, and she can't stand him.

Gabriel is doing his friends, Dominic and Claire, a big favor by driving from Gandiegow to Glasgow to retrieve someone who clearly doesn't like him. When she sees him, though, after ten years, Emma is stunned at the Scottish warrior who helps retrieve her bags. Now a physician, Gabriel is ruggedly handsome, tall, and imposing, but the two immediately start sniping at each other. Emma is not going to fall for someone just because of his looks, and Gabriel thinks that egghead Emma has not gotten any nicer personality-wise since Claire and Dominic's wedding ten years before.

Things don't get much better once they finally reach Gandiegow after an overnight stint in a rural cabin when the Land Rover is stuck in a ditch. Emma's whole idea of visiting Claire was because of her best friend's rock solid, happy marriage. But Claire and Dominic are sparring over whether to have a baby or not. Claire is determined, but Dominic knows their small restaurant in Gandiegow is too new to be making enough income to support a family. Then Emma gets snagged by the quilt ladies, headed by old Deydie. She's assigned to stitch the doctor's quilt, a tradition in the village when a new doctor moves in. Although the village has yet to welcome Gabe with open arms, tradition is tradition.

The Kilts and Quilts series continues with MEET ME IN SCOTLAND. Emma is at a turning point in her career, and the compact village and its eccentric citizens will steer her kicking and screaming in the right direction. Her feelings for Gabe are real, although she struggles to subdue them. As for Gabriel, he is through with his wild ways and just wants to settle down and be the town doctor. His heart is confused by Emma's behavior at times, but events will make things clear for both of them, thanks, in part, to the machinations of Deydie and other villagers.

Book one in the series, TO SCOTLAND WITH LOVE, is a great place to start, introducing many of the characters, but MEET ME IN SCOTLAND can certainly be read alone. This is a fun tale set in a fictional village that seems to have some magical qualities about it. I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

Jani Brooks