I’m always here for a down bad man, and no one does it better than Lana Ferguson! Her next book, UNDER LOCH AND KEY, comes out Dec 3, so make sure you get your preorder in! Trust me, you want access to Keyanna and Lachlan as soon as possible!

Keyanna “Key” Mackay is determined to connect with her beloved father’s estranged family in Scotland. Since losing him to a crushing illness, his stories about the wilds of the Highlands and the creatures they hold are all she has left of him. But after a run in with a broody, gorgeous Scotsman, Lachlan, followed by a less than warm welcome from her family, Key wonders if there’s anything for her in the land her father loved so much.

Before she can throw in the towel, another run in with Lachlan makes her realize the stories her father used to tell her were grounded in truth, and she becomes determined to learn it all. But as the two work together, they start to wonder if the secrets of the past are the key to their future, or if they’ll tear them both apart.

This book!!! I had so much fun from the first page. All of Lana’s work is amazing, but there’s something extra magical (pun only somewhat intended) about her genre-bending books. UNDER LOCH AND KEY was pure rom-com goodness, but with the extra excitement of the monster-sized secrets hanging over them. Plus, the SPICE 🥵 Lana knows how to take it to the next level, so give the man a monster tongue and you’ll never recover!

This will definitely be a re-read, and I can’t wait to see what Lana comes up with next!

This was phenomenal from start to finish. I can’t believe Lana managed to make me cry within the first 50 pages, the whole storyline with her dad and grandparents was so raw and I feel like it will be so incredibly impactful for many people. I will also say this is the first book I’ve read where the accent’s of characters are so clear from just the writing and the slang used, I could clearly hear every Scottish accent so well and it made the story all the more enjoyable. Lachlan was to die for and will definitely be a favourite book boyfriend for me and I can’t wait for everyone else to read this in December!

Well, I, for one, am certainly glad Lana Ferguson decided to dip her toes into monster romance.

Under Loch and Key tells the tale of Keyanna “Key” MacKay, who discovers that her late father’s tale of the Loch Ness Monster turns out to be true when she goes to Ireland to connect with the extended family she’s never met.

Lachlan Greer has been taught to never trust a MacKay, so he hates Key on sight and wants her to go somewhere else, anywhere else really. He certainly doesn’t find her attractive or intriguing at all, and he definitely doesn’t want her to learn any of his secrets.

At a glance:
- Dual POV
- Irish setting
- Monster romance
- Ancient curse
- Enemies-to-lovers
- Reconnecting with family
- Uncovering secrets
- Grief

Read it for
- The banter and humor
- How fiercely Lachlan loves Key (once he realizes he doesn’t hate her after all)
- The meddlesome twins
- How Key reconnects with her family
- And how she accepts Lachlan for who he is
- Their determination to end the curse
- The Highland games scene (Hello, men in kilts!)
- Some (ahem) scenes involving certain aspects of Lachlan’s inner monster
- An epilogue that gave me the biggest grin

4.5⭐️

I received an advance copy of the book from Berkley. All review opinions are my own.

This story is a very spicy enemies to lovers romance with some fantasy. I loved romance aspect of this book, I would say they have a grumpy sunshine kind of romance. The only thing that bothered me about this book is the Scottish accent. I didn’t understand their slang 🙃overall a really fun read! I didn’t know what to expect when I heard that this story was about the loch ness monster… but it was done well!

Under Loch and Key is a thrilling, atmospheric paranormal romance that immerses readers in Scottish lore, magic, and mystery. This book is perfect for fans of love stories set in enchanting, moody landscapes and featuring couples who start as rivals before discovering a powerful connection.
Keyanna "Key" MacKay is a relatable and tenacious heroine, brought to Scotland by the secrets her father left behind. From the start, the author draws you in with Key’s quest to uncover her family history and navigate this strange, supernatural world. When she’s rescued by Lachlan Greer, a rugged Scotsman with a simmering intensity and a clear distrust of her family name, sparks fly immediately. Their chemistry is undeniable, and their banter is a delightful mix of sarcasm and tension that builds throughout the story.
Lachlan is equally compelling, a protector with a hidden past and layers of complexity. The author paints a rich, vivid picture of him—mysterious, brooding, and bound by duty. His initial wariness toward Key slowly shifts as he begins to see her resilience and sincerity, making their gradual shift from enemies to reluctant allies feel real and earned. The Scottish setting, complete with eerie lochs, misty landscapes, and hidden secrets, adds an atmospheric quality to their romance, making it feel both timeless and otherworldly.
The novel’s paranormal elements are well-crafted, adding an exciting layer to the plot. Key’s emerging powers and the curse that binds Lachlan’s family create a sense of urgency and suspense. While the pacing occasionally slows with the weight of backstory, The author does a fantastic job unraveling the mystery of their families and histories, leading to a satisfying reveal that ties their fates together in a way that feels both surprising and natural.
Under Loch and Key is a compelling read, with a beautifully haunting Scottish setting, memorable characters, and a romance that is equal parts steamy and sweet. The author weaves magic, history, and love into a story that’s sure to capture the hearts of paranormal romance fans. A perfect read for anyone looking for a love story with depth, humor, and a touch of the supernatural!

I am obsessed with this book!! I can’t lie I was a ~little~ nervous going into it. The whole lochness monster aspect of it made me a little scared but I LOVED Lana’s werewolf book so I had to give this one a chance and I’m so glad I did!! This was truly had a perfect human:Loch Ness ratio, along with the romance and a bit of mystery too! I had such a great time with it and with these characters!!
Lachlan and Key’s arcs, together and separately, were so much fun. They had the perfect enemies tension, while both being obsessively worried about the other’s safety and wellbeing… and just plain obsessed with each other. I will also just always love a little family plot line and both Key and Lachlan’s were so heartwarming.
… and I mean, of course, I have to mention it, the Loch Ness smut was TOO GOOD!!!! Lana is such a master at her craft.
Such a fun paranormal romance!!

This book was so much fun to read! Just like everything we've read from Lana so far, I feel like it had the same style and wittiness to it that all the other books have had. It was definitely super cute but probably not my favourite Lana book to date! I didn't find the characters super strong in how they were written and wasn't feeling very connected to them as I was reading.

This was a very turn your brain off enjoy kind of read, and it was perfect for a lazy day read without having to put much thought into it. Super cute and super easy read!

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC!

Lana Ferguson writes something, and I'm sat. It's that simple. I absolutely adore the way Ferguson writes banter. These two had a particularly feisty dynamic that was all too much fun to watch. Dual POV is my favorite thing in romance books, especially when #HeFallsFirst and we eventually get to the point where she is still exasperated with him, and it cuts to his POV and he's absolutely smitten. What can I say, it gets me every time!

The setting was rich and unique from her other books. I really enjoyed it and felt like I was in Scotland trying to solve the mystery right along with them.

I freaking loved this love story!

Under Loch and Key starts out promising with a wildly inconvenient circumstance and a couple cozy little meet-ups.

You quickly get some angst and a puzzle-to-solve type trope or two, followed by the beginning of the best trope, enemies to lovers.

The story keeps you wanting more and more!
Although I wish it was slightly shorter and less wordy, as my own personal preference, it IS well written and highly recommended for romance and monster romance readers!

Thank you to the publishers for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Keyanna (Key) MacKay knows almost nothing about her family history. Her father left Scotland before she was born, and his time there was rarely discussed. After his death, Key travels to meet her grandparents and fulfill her father's dying wish to take him back to his homeland. She quickly meets grumpy, but gorgeous, Scotsman Lachlan, who happens to be staying on her grandparents' farm. The two can't seem to agree on anything, except their mutual attraction to each other. Once Key discovers Lachlan's secret, and the part she plays in it, she finds that the stories her father told of magic and monsters were not just stories--they were real.

This was a fun read! The story is very straightforward but still kept my attention. It had a lot of great tropes: enemies to lovers, fated mates, nicknames, etc. This is a unique twist on a typical monster story and I found the mystery of it all very enjoyable. I also want to visit Loch Ness now. Another important element of the story was how Key and Lachlan reconnected with their families. I really enjoyed this aspect of the story as well. Overall, this book is an entertaining paranormal romance. Recommended!

this was a touch too cheesy with all the monster talk. nothing too serious and very predictable by the end of it, but a fun time nonetheless.

This book was such a magical, heartfelt, and steamy read! It had some of my favorite tropes—enemies to lovers, that classic grumpy x sunshine clash, and a SUPER unique twist on the Loch Ness legend set in the gorgeous Scottish Highlands. And can we talk about the broody hero with a hidden heart of gold? Yes, please!

Not only is it spicy (and I mean spicy), but it’s also layered with so much heart, family drama, and the struggle of healing old wounds. Keyanna heads to Scotland to honor her dad’s last wish and learns there’s a lot more to her family history than she thought. She’s hoping to reconnect with family, but instead finds herself getting tangled up with a rugged, gruff stranger who’s way too good at pushing her buttons. The pull between them is undeniable, and the tension is off the charts!

Read if you like ⬇️:
•Enemies to Lovers
•Grumpy x sunshine
•Smalltown romance
•Forced proximity
•Hidden family secrets
•Magic/supernatural elements
•Legends/folklore

This had the perfect blend of romance, Scottish folklore, and high-stakes mystery. Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for letting me dive into this one early. (Not to mention I was over the moon to receive this one since it was my FIRST ARC from Berkley!!)

Oh, and this was also my first “monster” romance, but it definitely won’t be my last! The Scottish Highlands setting made it even more amazing!

My favorite explanation ever of the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, sometimes referred to as a water horse, is not that it’s a mythological being, but it’s a plesiosaur–a now-extinct prehistoric beast, simply out of its own time. In Voyager, part of, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, heroine Claire glimpses Nessie and understands at once that it is a marine reptile, most likely drifting through some underwater cavern that happens to be a portal from the past to the present.

Lana Ferguson’s Under Loch and Key goes the mythology route: generations of men are forced to become a water horse at night, existing in the Loch until they emerge, human again, at dawn. Lachlan, the current Greer male under this curse, is working as a hired hand at Rhona and Finley MacCay’s sprawling farm when the granddaughter they’ve never met, Keyanna MacKay, comes–uninvited–to this family seat in Scotland to scatter her father’s ashes and trace the roots of the only tale he remembers at the end of his life–being saved by something that kept him from drowning in the loch.

Strapping Lachlan, secretly on premises to find a the bridle to break the curse, is both attracted to and infuriated by red-headed daughter of MacKay, and the feeling seems mutual. Meanwhile, Key’s cousin Brodie, a historian on sabbatical, is also lurking about, looking for some family history, even as he claims most papers and books were lost in a fire in the 1800s.

Everyone knows what a selkie is… right? It’s a seal shape-shifter that can be controlled by holding onto their pelt. Ferguson borrows from kelpie legend, here: Lachlan is a water-horse shapeshifter that can only be controlled by capturing it’s bridle. Once Key recognizes what Lach is, both are determined to break the curse, but neither is sharing the full story with the other. Oh, and Key may have some mythical magic of her own. Descended from the lineage that cursed the Greer family, she discovers it’s within her power to halt a rainstorm, conjure fire, and track an injured lover.

The span of the novel is not just Key and Lach falling for one another in spite of their families’s long-standing animosities, but a modern myth includes complete world-building, complex family dynamics, Scottish history, family genealogy, and a lot of emotion. There’s coping with guilt and grief, and loss of a parent from several point of views: Key’s grandmother Rhona has missed her son since he left for America, and she still doesn’t understand why after Key’s mother died in childbirth, he never came back. Key misses her deceased dad, and Lach misses his very-much-still-alive mother and his dad, who entered the loch one night after accidentally hurting–and never changed back, and has never come out. And any interaction Lach has with his dad, at night, in the loch, is nothing but battle.

The narrative alternates point of view, so we get both inside of Key’s head, and Lach’s. Enemies to lovers and grumpy/sunshine fans will love the sarcasm as flirting, bickering, and Key thinking Lach is just a dick, albeit, a hunky one. Their banter brings to mind both Star Wars and The Princess Bride, in that he calls her princess (first with some snideness, then with reverence and affection), and he IS a farm hand, and as one point, even utters, “As you will,” (pretty close to “As you wish.”)–commence the swooning.

Under Loch and Key is clever on so many levels, including the intricate plotting, weaving in of legend, and the mystery and secrets that pull the reader into the story. Key’s trip to a local museum about that Loch Ness Monster is aimed at children; and it adds to her character that she sticks out the self-guided tour, even as she realizes she is not the intended audience for this tourist trap. Her reflection on her dad and wondering whether he came this way, once, too–saw the same exhibits, touched the same artifacts– is a way for the author get Key in touch with her grief and to impart background information by having Key discover it, instead of the author conveying it. When editors and readers scream, show, don’t tell! THIS is what we mean. And the title alone is masterful: a play on the names Lachlan and Keyanna, it’s also sexual innuendo, a metaphor of fitting tab A into slot B, and it’s a reference to the long-buried secrets of the family’s history and the Loch Ness Monster that must be “unlocked.”

The story could potentially be read on another level: it’s about loving someone, across time passing and shape changing, for who they are, no matter how montrous they feel (I’m thinking about loving someone in recovery, someone who atoned for past misdeeds) or even loving someone whose body has changed but their essence remains the same (everything from loving an aging spouse to someone who has gained or lost significant weight, gone bald, lost a limb, or transitions from their assigned at birth gender). Key’s willingness to make love with Lach during a stage somewhere between human and beast is about radical acceptance. Okay, SOME of the monstrous features turn out to be to her benefit…

Under Loch and Key boasts a complex plot, perfect pacing, strong dialogue, magical realism, fully developed peripheral characters, and a beautiful setting, from the cow-speckled farmland to the loch’s rocky shores to the charming local pub and the fascinating museum of curiousities. And, it’s a detailed steamy read. The consummation of the relationship scene includes play by play and lots of vocalization; it goes on for two chapters and ends with every light bulb in a Lach’s tiny cabin exploding. And yet: I kept picking up this book and putting it down, instead of reading straight through, because while I like paranormal romance, it’s not my immediate go-to in the way that books with men in kilts on the cover are. If you look closely, Lach’s shadow on the cover indicates that this is not just a traditional Scottish romance. I missed it, but after devouring Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon, and hearing that Under Loch and Key is also a monster romance, I was intrigued. Truly, it is wonderfully conceived, spectacularly executed, and comes to a satisfying conclusion, and is sure to appeal to readers across genres.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #UnderLochAndKey via #NetGalley, courtesy of #Berkley. This review will post 11/1/24 on HLBB.

This was perhaps one of the cutest romances I've ever read! Lana did an amazing job with this one! She is one of my auto buy authors for sure!

A fun foray into paranormal romance for lovers of Fourth Wing and Outlander. What secrets does broody Scottish hunk Lachlan Greer hold? Will Keyanna solve the mystery while keeping her own secrets safe? What will happen when secrets collide?

My ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I’m always onboard for a Lana Ferguson novel and I love the Scottish cryptids in this one!

I don't know what Lana Ferguson has to do for me to not adore one of her books - but I'm eager to read every other book she ever writes to see if I can find out. <wink> While her "real-life" rom-coms are awesome, I must say her monster rom-coms are beastly perfection. Her monster books boil down to this they are a new modern, egalitarian take on the classic monster romance perfected with witty banter and sarcasm. Really what's not to love?

Quick Synopsis: After her father passes away, Key searches for the only family she has left. Her father's estranged parents. Hoping to find a place to belong, Key uncovers not only the truth behind a centuries-old family feud, but also how to break a curse, and with some luck, the family she's been missing.

Stars: 5/5
Steam: 4/5

What to Expect: Loch Ness Monster RomCom, Magic & Mystery, Multi-Generational Enemies to Lovers, Only One Barn, Never waking up in bed next to each other, Sarcasm As Flirting, Touch Him and Die Vibes.

Thank you to Lana Ferguson, Berkley, and Netgalley for an advanced copy to read and review. (Opinions are my own).

PS: Post on Instagram at @bedsport.books will go up about 2 weeks before pub date.

TW/CW: Death of a parent, childhood abandonment, estranged family

Lana is the only person that i trust to write monster romance for me because she does it so well!! i never thought i would find myself reading something like this but here we are

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Another entertaining read from Lana! I'm quickly learning that I'll read whatever she writes (although I still need to go back and read The Nanny 😅)
But her books are very engaging and easy to read and the spice sure doesn't hurt either 🔥

Lachlan was a great MMC. Moody and dickish at first but he grew to be such a teddy bear. I was pretty okay with Key as the FMC, although I wish she had a little more spine when it came to her grandmother in the beginning.

And I feel like Lana tried to not have a third act breakup in this one, which I guess there technically wasn't, but it still was as ridiculously dramatic and over the top as these they tend to be. Key finds out information toward the end and just implodes and walks away, not leaving him necessarily, just needing time. But I'm still looking for a book where this scenario comes up and the FMC doesn't lose her shit. I get being blindsided, angry, emotional, the whole thing, but none of these FMC's ever take the time to ask why something happened or didn't happen, and I really wish it would.

I also called the ending a mile away, so a little disappointed that wasn't hidden a little more as that causes some feelings of frustration when you can clearly see what's going on but the FMC has absolutely no idea 😖

But overall this was a really entertaining read and would recommend for any romance readers.

A woman moves to Scotland after her dad dies to reconnect with her estranged grandparents. She immediately meets a man who has some big secrets, and we soon discover that their stories are intertwined. There's a mystery to solve, answers to find, and a centuries-old curse that needs breaking. I'm a big fan of Lana Ferguson so I tried really hard to love this book, but ultimately this just wasn't a match for me. Some of the storylines were just ridiculous, and there were several scenes that had me rolling my eyes. Key and Lachlan had good chemistry but with so much time spent on the curse there was less time to spend on developing quality character arcs. That said, it's a fun and spicy paranormal romance that other readers will likely enjoy.