53 books like Highland Games

As someone who’s hooked on cooking reality TV shows, I was smitten with this spicy romcom with all the tantalizing ingredients for great banter. Peppery Gigi is a saucy-mouthed leading babe who goes toe to toe with any taker, whether she’s trading insults with her acidic-tongued celebrity chef or cooing seductive come-ons to the smooth-as-caramel southern charmer who’s whet her appetite. I loved that author Josie Juniper’s hilariously twisted love triangle definitely brings the heat, but it’s the sizzling banter that truly turns the flame up to 11.

This is a seriously funny book full of great dialogue. It’s also a great premise…the hero who makes a bet with his friend to sleep with said friend’s very cranky ex-girlfriend.

Min has just been recently dumped by a man she didn’t love, but she’s not in the mood to deal with any man’s ****. Cal is stupidly handsome, successful, and charming, but he needs to be brought down a peg or ten. This is opposites attract romance with lots of heart!

Rock star romances have been my jam since back when my teen bedroom walls were filled with Tiger Beat pinups. The beautifully-orchestrated banter that keeps the beat of a rock and roll love affair fraught with hit and miss encounters helps build the tension towards a satisfying crescendo. (Full disclosure: I begged author Kelly Kay to disclose her real-life inspiration, and it was exactly who I’d pictured!) The hotel pool scene where Meg and rockstar Ian do nothing more than talk (fully clothed) lives rent free in my head as one of the steamiest scenes I’ve ever read. 

Irresistibly sharp, realistic dialogue between the leads makes this cowboy romance the most memorable I’ve read to date. Immediately, I wanted to saddle up and ride off into the sunset with them. Second chance romance is arguably the best trope for sparks to fly, and Jack and Everlea’s history is living proof, as their gorgeous natural banter conveys depth and shows their destined connection growing from frenemies to lovers. Greta Rose West is a one-click author for me thanks to her obvious gift for writing her characters’ gab. 

Isabella is by prolific novelist, Colin Falconer who writes in many genres and covers many eras from ancient times through medieval to modern. Isabella has been the subject of quite a few novels but I enjoyed this one the most, owing to an engaging writing style that draws the reader along. Isabella also seems very human—not the harpy she is often made out to be in many fictional accounts. She is often called a ‘she-wolf’, an insulting term often used for medieval women who do things out of the ordinary, but Falconer’s book makes her more human, even if one cannot always agree with her decisions.

No one writes kilted comedy like Caroline Lee, and this title may be her funniest yet. In this medieval festive romance, our heroine is determined to take her happiness into her own hands, convincing the man of her dreams that they truly are the perfect match. The fact that she embroiders bloody battle scenes rather than the usual floral compositions, and is working on a compilation of kama-sutra-style coital positions is the icing on the cake of this wonderful romp.  

A lady trying to reform a gentleman takes a delightful twist in this story about a perfectly civilized Scotsman who inherits a British title and the family and estates that go along with it, only to find they all expect him to need lessons in etiquette. Nichole Van knows just the right tone to take to make you fall in love with them all. 

Faced with publishing debts after their boys' adventure magazine failed, two young men, the author, and James Adams, undertook a kayak expedition in the mid-1930s up the Scottish west coast from the Clyde to Mull, raising funds by selling reports to the press.

They learned much of the remote and deprived Highland economy, which stood the author in good stead later, editing the Daily Record and The Scotsman.

A long trip, including helping to take in the harvest in the autumn, it involved canvas kayaks, kilts, and buying provisions from farms, much more onerous than kit for present-day expeditions.

Originally published as Quest by Canoe, this version includes significant extra material, including press cuttings.

This funny and fascinating memoir is a great read and provides a window into what life was like behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s, under a brutal and oppressive regime. 

Mackay spends two years in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, as visiting professor at the University. Spied on, treated warily by locals, and forbidden to travel, he nevertheless finds ways to see the country and gain insight into its culture and people.

Whether you want to find out more about Romania or you just want a captivating read which will open your mind to how different life can be without the freedoms and privileges we currently enjoy in the West, you will love this book.

This book helped me understand the lives of young male jazz musicians in the early 20th century. A wacky, ecstatic, fragmented, kaleidoscopic, memoir—nostalgic always for Bloomington, Indiana, and his college days in the early 1920s. There Carmichael met his pals Monk and Bix, both of whom died too young. He dedicates the book to them and remembers them fondly. Monk, a surrealistic poet, and Bix, a great musical genius, they understood each other immediately. Bix responded to one of Monk’s poems saying, “I am not a swan.” There is a Dadaist flavor to Monk’s writing, as well as some of Hoagy’s: “The years had pants.” Intertwined with these memories is the slow, jerky progress of Carmichael’s journey from a would-be composer to a famous songwriter.