Shadow Music: A Novel (Highlands' Lairds Book 3)

I have always enjoyed Julie Garwood's historical novels and never read her contemporary novels. I like that she includes characters from previous novels as it is like running into old friends. Glad she wrote another one.

I love Julie Garwood's books this series has been the most amazing and the one I remember the most when I was little my favorite out of the Highland laird series is ransom I loved Brodick and Jillian

I love Julie Garwoods historical novels. This is probably the first book I can say was very close to terrible. It was difficult to finish. It's not like any of her other historical books which I love and almost felt like she was trying to make it more contemporary. A big disappointment. I truly hope she will one day get back to writing historicals as she did in the past. This contemporary crap she writes needs to go. I'm still waiting on the story of Faith and Quinlin (sorry if I misspelled his name but many of you already know exactly who I'm talking about!). So far I love her other historical books and recommend many but don't waste your money on this. If this is going to be her new way of writing then she just lost a fan :(

Julie Garwood is one of my favorite writers to read. Weather she is writing historical romance or contemporary. I can't put the book down. I loved Shadow Music!!!!!! It was a story that caught your attention from the beginning to the very end. There were characters from other books that made me go back and look them up and re-read those books as well. Loved it!!!

Shadow Music is the back-story of the feud between the MacKenna's and the Buchanan's that was discovered in her contemporary novel Shadow Dance: A Novel.

Princess Gabrielle's mother was part of the royal family of the Island of St. Biel, before she moved to England to be with her baron husband. The late king of that island was clever and when the Crusaders came he outwitted them, collected tolls, and sent gold to appease the Pope. Since that time rumors have existed about whether or not the king held back some of that gold.

Gabrielle is a great beauty and her physical allure is the cause of a competitive feud between two barons. The two baron's, fueled by empty promises by King John that one of the barons will have her hand in marriage, become obsessed with Gabrielle. When King John dupes the barons and promises Gabrielle to a Scottish Laird, the two baron's become more and more devious in their plans for Gabrielle.

Gabrielle accepts her fate and travels to Scotland only to have her life turned upside down, yet again. Needing protection she takes shelter with the Laird MacHugh and begins a journey of another sort.

I absolutely loved the first half of this story and flipped through the pages rapidly as I got caught up in the characters and intrigue. The romance between the Laird and Gabrielle promised to be explosive and the mystery of the gold and the devious barons added intrigue and excitement. The middle of this book was also great, though it began to plateau a bit. I began to wonder when things were going to start happening. By the end of this book I was wondering what the heck happened, somewhere along the line this book lost the feel and flavor it originally possessed and became lackluster.

Having first discovered Julia Garwood and her historicals, I was so excited for her to return to the genre I feel she mastered, unfortunately she just didn't pull it off like I had hoped she would. While the middle of this book dragged, the wrap up for me felt really hasty. This is not a great read, especially for Julia Garwood, but it's still a good read, I am glad I read it. I am hoping she will give the historicals another shot and revisit the MacHugh clan and give us a story on the Lairds brother, Liam.

Hardwood is one of my favorite authors. Her novels, as this one was, are the kind one reads over and over and are enjoyed each time you read them. This one is fun to read. I have read it several times and I am sure I will read it again.

As a huge fan of Julie Garwood's historical romance novels, i was delighted to find a book I had not yet read by her. Unfortunetly, this was not all I had dreamed it would be. It took entirely too long to even get introduced to the main characters ( it was about 100+ pages in before the two main characters even met). the story was still good, but dissapointing compared to all the rest of her books in this same vein.

I love Julie Garwoods books,however I would have to say this was not one of her best. It fell a little flat for me. The characters and storyline did not deliver like Julies books usually do. It's a good book to borrow from someone but I don't think I'd buy it if you haven't already.

Very disappointing book, no where near the calibre, depth & detail of earlier historical romance books by Julie Garwood. Implausible baseline plot in country of St Biel on the crusade route supposedly named after a saint but it is a hoax and no one realises it. Ties in some favourite heroes from earlier excellent books but even this can't salvage the story.

First, like others who have reviewed, I love Julie Garwood books, both modern and historical. Also, like others, this one left me wondering if it was really written by Julie Garwood. Among other things, the most glaring error was that Brodick got the story wrong about whose child Gillian was returning to whom when they met! At that point in my much-anticipated and much-disappointed reading, I knew that something was not kosher...

I wonder whether this book might just set up the next novel where we hear more about Colm's brother. I can only hope that Ms. Garwood (or whoever actually wrote the novels I love so much) does the writing.

I give it three stars because it was still an enjoyable read and my disappointment stems from the high standards set in previous books.

Three stars.... just because she's Julie Garwood, who has brought me so many hours of reading pleasure.

I'm just confused about the release of this book. It's almost as though between the Publisher and the Public Julie Garwood felt "forced" to write a Historical Romance and this is what we ended up with. Even the title lacks any real effort or interest because it mimics her previous Contemporary release "Shadow Dance".... as though she was not even excited enough to come up with a title that wouldn't sound like part of her most recent contemporary mystery/romance books.

The plot and the reviews have just about stated it all; some of the writing is vintage Garwood but the romance is lacking and I for one didn't really care if the Hero and Heroine lived 'Happily Ever After' or not.

Maybe if you aren't a long time fan then this novel will be enjoyable, but for those of us who keep Jamie and Alec and the rest of the Scots on our keeper shelf it's just sad.

I would have preferred to keep waiting then to have this be the result.