New Review: Paula Quinn’s THE WICKED WAYS OF ALEXANDER KIDD – A Pirate Sails Away with a Highland Lass

This is another in the continuing saga of the MacGregor and Grant clans. Set in early 18th century beginning in Scotland, this is the story of Caitrina Grant, daughter of a Highland chief, who longs for adventure and wants to avoid the marriage her father has arranged for her. Alexander Kidd is a pirate who is in Scotland seeking the map to a sunken treasure ship, a legacy of his pirate father. He comes to her home to retrieve the map his father left with her clan—and sails away with Caitrina.

While Alex’s ship is anchored, she steals aboard with her cousin, Kyle, to take see the ship. But she and Kyle fall asleep and the ship sails… Alex, who is very attracted to Caitrina (and she to him) doesn’t want her messing up his plans, but it seems they are to spend a month sailing together to the West Indies and beyond.

I like how Quinn made Alex into a real pirate…the language…the deeds, even his casual relationships with women. Of course, that didn’t make him a likely hero but he developed a noble streak when it came to our heroine; otherwise, he’s the real, swashbuckling, bad boy deal. There a lot of adventure, battles at sea and exotic locales in this story as the pirates hunt for treasure…and hunt…and hunt. Caitrina wanted adventure and she certainly gets it!

There’s little of the Highlands here, and the only Scot on stage for most of the story is Kyle, though the cast of the Grant and MacGregor families show up at the beginning at Camlochlin and the end in the West Indies and Africa. Though it can be read as a stand alone, I think it might be best read after the earlier Children of the Mist series.

Highland Heirs series:

The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell
The Sweet Surrender of Janet Buchanan
The Wicked Ways of Alexander Kidd
The Scandalous Secret of Abigail MacGregor