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Connie Brockway sweeps readers back to the rough beauty of Regency-era Scotland and into the scintillating, passionate, and surprising love story of a mysterious Highlander and the woman he is pledged to protect. Desperate to keep her two sisters and herself from the poorhouse, Kate Nash Blackburn embarks upon a journey to northern Scotland, where she hopes to gain the gratitude and patronage of a wealthy marquis. When fate maroons her at a tavern full of ruffians, a brawny Highland soldier comes to her rescue. It's Kit MacNeill, the man whose pledge to her family has haunted her for years. When he offers to escort Kate through the treacherous Highlands to Castle Parnell, she accepts even though her instincts warn her against trusting this rough and dangerous man. But soon Kate is startled by the Highlander's cultured speech and courtly manners. Who is this man of contradictions, shaped by a shadowy past, who fiercely wards off an attempt on her life, whose broad shoulders beckon her touch, and in whose arms she comes fully alive?… (more)
User reviews
I far preferred the first half, during which Kit and Kate have to journey across the Scottish moors. The unfolding of their relationship during this episode was very compelling and tender, each coming to know the other but resisting because, of course, there has to be something holding them apart. Even though that's common enough in romances, here, fortunately, there are reasons, and they make sense.
A big aspect of the book and Kit's character is his desire for revenge - he and his three friends were betrayed during the French Revolution, at the cost of the life of one of their number, and he is tortured and driven by the need to find out who betrayed them and exact vengeance. Kit is a great character - kind of intimidating, definitely violent, but completely at Kate's command because he's in debt to her departed father. You'll have to read the book to find out the particulars of the circumstances that bind these two together.
I didn't find Kate as interesting or sympathetic as Kit - she's not mean or anything, but she is used to living a certain lifestyle, one of luxury and wealth, and with the death of her father she's been taken over by the desperation bred of poverty. Her actions are all very understandable, and she's fully three-dimensional - so I don't know why I wasn't really drawn to her. Oh well. Like I said, loved the first half, not so much the second. Despite the deus ex machina conclusion, it was overall a great book, romantic in every sense of the word.