Eva faces a serious problem. Her father has bartered her off in marriage to a dude in a rival clan without her consent. Not only does she have no interest in being a part of that clan, but she has no interest in marriage. Taking the only path she feels she has the power to choose, Eva hightails it out of her family keep and attempts to hide in the Scottish Highlands.

Unlucky for her, Rob, her betrothed, is pretty good at tracking folks down and is pretty freaking motivated to get to her. He needs a wife, was promised Eva, and sees no real reason why there's a problem with that. He's not really in the mood for marriage himself, but their lairds decided the marriage was necessary and he's not one for questioning authority. Luckily for us and Eva, Rob finds her departure vaguely amusing.

As he finds her in short order and she lets him know exactly what she thinks about him, the sparks fly. As this is a Harlequin category, Terri Brisbin does not have a whole lot of words to play with. Her story has to be believable, enjoyable, and economical and she nails all three. I think it takes an enormous amount of skill to be able to pull of a good historical category, especially since the big players in the genre have double her word count to tell their stories, and Brisbin does it well.

Eva's father is a douchecanoe, for the record, and is using a pretty big secret of Eva's against her in how he controls her life. When Rob sorts out Eva's secret, he becomes her ally in freeing herself from her father. THE HIGHLANDER'S RUNAWAY BRIDE made me chuckle and tear up and root for Eva and Rob in short order. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a good Highland read.