This is a beautifully written
story with a compelling hero and a wonderful heroine. A keeper that will not disappoint. The author is also known as Kimberly Cates and Kim Cates, and I'm pleased to announce that she
will be a guest on my blog on Tuesday the 10th so be sure and check
in for that!
Set in Donegal, Ireland in
1718, NIGHTWYLDE is the story of wealthy English Protestant Maryssa Wylder and poor
Irish Catholic Tade Kilcannon, the heir of a proud Irish family dispossessed of
their title and their ancestral lands by the English. He is known to only a few
as the masked patriot, the Black Falcon, who raids the British to help and
protect the Irish. To everyone else, handsome Tade appears as only a rakehell known
for his drinking and his female conquests. He takes no woman seriously until he
meets the beautiful, unloved and innocent Maryssa, who has been banished from
the English court for objecting to heinous torture of a young woman.
Both are the victims of their
fathers’ anger: Tade’s father is disappointed in his rakehell heir (knowing
nothing about his escapades as the Black Falcon), and Maryssa’s father hates
her for her mother’s supposed infidelity. In addition, Tade’s father hates
Maryssa’s father for all he stole from the Kilcannons. The undercurrents of
tension are rife as are the dangers swirling around the young lovers as Tade
responds to the desperate longing for love he sees in Maryssa, and she responds
to his tender loving and kind words, something she has never had. Tade stands
as the strong defender of his people; and Maryssa, once a shy and retiring
girl, becomes a fiercely courageous woman who will fight for the man she loves.
It’s a beautiful and poignant
love story, very well told and very exciting, set against the tumultuous time in
Ireland’s history when the English treated the Irish brutally: Catholics could
not hold titles of nobility; they could not own land in their own country; they
could not educate their children (except in secret as Tade’s parents did); and
they could not practice their faith or have their priests (Tade’s brother
Devlin, a priest, is hunted by the English).
I highly recommend this one!
In case you’re curious, Cates
wrote three historicals under the name Kimberleigh Caitlin:
SKY OF ASHES, SEA OF FLAMES
(1987)
NIGHTWYLDE (1988)
WILDWITCH (1991)
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