Ing Cruz
Written on Oct 14, 2011
Gwyneth Carswell was banished to the Highlands to live with her distant relatives, the MacIrwin after she was compromised by the Marques of Southwick. After six years living in the brutal Highlands she is still baffled by the brutality of the men and women of the Highlands. Her kin’s clan is always in some bloody battle with the neighboring clan MacGrath. All Gwyneth wants is to return back to England and raise her son, Rory. She does not want her kin Laird MacIrwin to recruit Rory and train him to fight. During one of these battles that take place near her cottage where she works as a healer with her friend Mora, Gwyneth finds a lone survivor in the field. The lone survivor is carrying some kind of peace treaty and had fine clothes. Gwyneth realizes that the lone survivor could possibly be the Laird of the clan MacGrath. Being a healer she makes the decision to keep him hidden and help heal him. Gwyneth is instantly drawn to this mystery man. During her days of healing him she comes to care for him.
Laird Alasdair MacGrath realizes he's been captured by the enemy. To protect himself he lies to Gwyneth about who he is in case she decides to turn him over to the Laird MacIrwin. Alasdair realizes that the bloody battles between his clan and MacIrwin will never end. He was tricked by the MacIrwin and ambushed in the fields as he was riding to meet the MacIrwin to talk about the peace treaty. While Alasdair recovers he finds himself drawn to Gwyneth as well but he knows that his presence has put her in danger. He makes an escape back to his lands never expecting to see her again.
Gwyneth flees for her and her son's life when her kinsman finds out that she was harboring the enemy. She seeks safety with Alasdair. Things become complicated for both as their feelings start to grow for one another. Gwyneth still plans to return to England and Alasdair is not sure he can let her go. Her presence has brought the wrath of the enemy onto his clan, her desire to return to England and an unexpected complications arrives that will make Alasdair's task to keep Gwyneth with him much harder.
My Thoughts:
Vonda Sinclair is a new to me author. I'm always leery of trying new authors out so I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book. I can honestly say that I liked this book. I liked it enough that I already bought and read the second book in this series. :) The book did start off a bit slow for me and it took me awhile to get into it. The action does start to pick up and things went smoothly from there.
Alasdair is a fine hero. He protects Gwyneth at every turn either from her clansman or from his fellow clansman. He is instantly attracted to her for her strength but knows that she is a lady and fights his baser instinct. Once he realizes there is no hope of ever getting over her he sets about to thoroughly seduce her and seduce her he did. As for Gwyneth she a bit more complicated. She is torn between her growing feelings for Alasdair and her wish to find a better life for her son away from the Highlands. There were moments that I enjoyed Gwyneth's strength and than she had her moments of blind stupidity that just made me want to smack her at times. LOL!
As a couple these two fit together and the scenes where they interact is filled with major sexual chemistry. Their story moved at a believable pace and the dialogue kept me reading. I loved the secondary characters in this book. Lachlan, Alasdair's younger brother was such a flirt and a man whore. I couldn't help but love him. Rory, Gwyneth's son was an absolute cutie. Usually kids in books annoy me but I thought Rory's character was well written and added to the storyline. The bad guys were literally bad. Rory's real father, Southwick and the Laird MacIrwin provided the right villainous conflict to keep the story moving nicely.
Overall I enjoyed this book. I definitely would recommend it for lovers of Highlander stories.