As an example, there is one part where Merry says “Lie down Rob” and the dialogue tag tells me she says it coldly. Lucy River’s narration was not always what the text called for. While I didn’t like it (like I said, uncomfortable), I think it achieved its aim in that regard. It is a close, claustrophobic kind of book, as you’d expect in a cabin romance I suppose.

On the other hand, there were moments that felt almost uncomfortably intimate. Some parts of the story felt didactic and not terribly romantic or sexy. It is quite an interior book, with not as much dialogue as I would have liked, resulting in a lot of telling and not enough showing. I didn’t realise the heroine’s name was Merry until I looked the book up on Goodreads to check my spelling and the publisher details. The accent was mostly okay (once I knew he wasn’t supposed to be Scottish) but I didn’t care for the narrator’s voicing of his character. I don’t know if the accent is authentically Leeds but it is working class UK, so it might be. To be fair, at first I thought Rob’s accent was the worst Scottish accent in history but after a chapter or two, the text does say he’s actually from Leeds and he only moved to Scotland to get away from it all. While there were times it was okay, even convincing, more often, it felt really fake – the female narrator equivalent of the male narrator’s dreaded drag-y female voice. I didn’t like the voice she used for Rob. I can’t say that she’s a bad narrator (really, that would be unfair), just that she’s not to my taste. I’ve come to realise that this narrator doesn’t work for me. Over the course of a few days as Merry recovers, she and Rob give in to their attraction and Rob finds in Merry someone who will not turn away from his fetishes – in fact, who actively encourages them. Rob is in self-imposed exile alone in the Highlands, he is safe from the seduction of alcohol and, what he feels is his problematic sexuality. There, she falls ill and seeks shelter in the secluded cabin of grumpy hermit, Rob Rush. Unbound tells the story of Merry Murray who, after losing a lot of weight, goes on a walking tour of Scotland, the place of her mother’s birth.

Curio by Cara McKenna