I really loved the premise of this book. Time travel? (Well, sort of) Yes! Scotland? Yes! Magic? Yes! True love? Actually no but I was hoping that would be kept to a minimum.

IT WASN'T.

The whole book starts with a breakup, and then a "mysterious Scottish hottie" keeps randomly appearing in random places where no other people can see him and creepily calling the main character's name, Verranica. Actually it's Veronica, but he has to say it with an accent which is supposed to make him appealing but actually makes him even creepier. At this point I'd kind of realized that Veronica's POV was going to be all about romance. But I had hopes for her friend, Mackenna,who didn't want to have anything to do with Doon in the first place. She was practical, spunky, and she wasn't being stalked by an invisible Scottish boy. Trust me, that soon changed. So the whole thing was romance centered. This isn't really a spoiler if you read the premise of the next book, but Mackenna leaves her dreamboy behind to pursue her original dream, and I was happy. At least one girl has some common sense, right? And then she decides it was all a mistake and that she must get back to him because they are cosmically connected. Seriously, WHY?!

The characters are about as deep as kiddie pools. Veronica, the main character, makes it very clear from the beginning that all she wants is to run off to magical Scotland-from-the-past and marry magical Scottish-dude-from-the-past whom she's never met. She really gets there, and he treats her like the dirt beneath his feet. But then he doesn't. But then he does again. ???? And she says she doesn't like him, but then she does, and then she really liked him the whole time. ?!?!?! She's conflicted about everything, but it's never actually deep conflict. It's all OMG! I have to leave the kingdom to save Jamie! But he's such a hottie! I don't want to leave him! But I have to! Because he'll die! But since I can't leave right now I guess I'll just become even more attached to him and come to his ball and spend so much time wishing I could be with him that I don't even figure out the hugely obvious plot twists until Jamie is kidnapped and almost dies!!! I mean, if you HAVE TO LEAVE HIM, DON'T SPEND TIME GETTING SENTIMENTALLY ATTACHED TO HIM. IT'S NOT THAT HARD. Jamie is no better. He treats her like pond scum for the first half of the book so that he won't become attached to a possible threat to the kingdom, and then goes through reverse evolution and loses all self restraint and it turns into a 3 page kissing scene, which I mostly skipped. He's not much, if any, smarter than Veronica. I appreciate the effort, but he should've just kept a polite distance between them the entire book. Don't treat her like a rodent. Just be cool and act like you've never seen her before until she gets out of your kingdom. Problem solved. So Mackenna seemed okay at first. A little lacking in good judgement, but okay. Then she got thrown into the romance blender and her character got all mangled. Duncan? He was a conceited jerk- who magically turned into a chivalrous superman! To top it all off, they all have no idea how good looking they are. The icing on the cake. I swear, Doon is like a refuge for confused Mary Sues and Gary Stues. The final battle is so final that it's badly packed into the last couple of pages. It was confusing and weird, and I couldn't help but imagine the whole thing taking place inside a teeny tiny dungeon cell with bad lighting. IDK, it just had that kind of vibe. And then it was immediately followed by more romance junk. So the plot was ROMANCE -> battle -> ROMANCE. I just had to set the book down sometimes and then beat it against the wall before I could keep reading. All in all, I think it was a nice idea, but it could have been executed way better.