What's Your Name Again?

First I’ll post the official book description of Jackie Barbosa's The Reiver and then offer my review.
“Duncan Maxwell, laird of Lochmorton Castle, gets the shock of his life when he discovers the reiver captured in a raid on his lands is not a boy, but a young woman. Although she flatly refuses to tell him her name or how she came to be riding with a raiding party, Duncan cannot countenance imprisoning a woman in his dungeon but neither can he release her without compensation. Unable to ransom her back to her family, he treats her as an honored—though exceptionally well-supervised—guest. He takes to calling her Reva and determines to seduce the truth of her identity from her. There’s just one problem—the reiver may steal his heart before he can reveal her secrets.

This short story (approximately 35 pages) was originally published in the Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance."


There is much to be said about this story. The Reiver has a healthy amount of mystery for the hero to puzzle through. Befuddled heroes are always fun, imo.lol. I loved how he tried to figure out her name by calling her something different every time they met up just to see if she’d react to it. So funny and clever! This story has a love that defies years of familial hatred(think Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending). The characters are incredibly mature and what would take hundreds of pages of thoughts and soul searching to come to their conclusions about each other in another book comes to them with some ease.

I’d also like to say that Jackie Barbosa is perhaps the most underrated author living right now. Her prose is exquisite. She clearly researches her books very thoroughly and her clear intelligence fairly oozes off the page.

Read this book and open yourself up to the genius that is Jackie Barbosa. You won’t regret it.