a self insert Outlander knock off

I've followed Sasha for years so when I saw she'd finally written a solo book I wanted to support. In general, it's a fine fantasy novel if you don't want to think and just want a silly book. 

The plot follows Klara, a red-headed American living in Scotland with her dad who runs a Bnb, and Callum, a 1500s Scotsman who just watched his best friend Thomas die and has fallen through time to the present day. Klara and Callum meet and then inevitably go on an adventure around Scotland to save the world. I will say I'm not a big fan of chosen one tropes and Klara is indeed a chosen one golden child. The whole plot revolves around her being the one and only left in the entire space and time to have magical blood. 

My main problems with the story revolve around the magic and the plot. The plot easily jumps from location to location without a real reason or rhyme, the author wants the characters in Skye so now they are. But the main character also immediately becomes a natural at her magic and also becomes an amazing sword fighter in two pages. It's just not believable. The magic system is also never really explained and there are a few random magical characters that are unexplained and just plot devices (Aion the shopkeeper, the deer man god, and the bean nighe).

I also found the romance really dull. They both are instantly attracted to each other and find each other hot but that's basically it. They spend three days together and decide they're deeply in love after having one maybe two weird kissing scenes. I don't believe their romance nor do I think Callum is particularly swoon-worthy, he's literally just hot and has not other positive factors.

My biggest problem though was with the locations. The story mostly takes place in three places: Edinburgh + a surrounding suburb, Skye, and Orkney. Every time they go anywhere it's described as 5 hours away. The beginning of the distance problems for me was when they went from Skye to Orkney, it seemed like they hadn't even gotten off Skye before going to an inn but then they discussed missing the ferry to Orkney-Skye to Orkney would be a good 7hrs (including a 1hr ferry). Meanwhile, the Dad visits them in Orkney in 5hrs? I also think that describing the fairy glen as 'Castle Ewan' is confusing for readers, although that's one of its names that paints a picture of a medieval castle where in reality it's more of a geological structure. There was also a bit in Edinburgh where they're in 'the tunnels' referring to the vaults under Old Town. All in all, not a very accurate picture of Scotland. In general I think there could've been more description of the setting, clothing, appearances, and actions in the whole book.

All this to say, by the end of the book I literally didn't care about the climax or characters. It wasn't shocking and it wrapped up super quickly and easily (as everything did).

But if you like Outlander you'll like this. It references: the skye boat song, Jamie standing outside of Claire's window alla S1Ep1, a knockoff Jamie (tough protective gentleman Scotsman), falling through time via mystic centers.