May is Scottish Historicals month on Historical Romance
Review and I’m starting with one that is also a classic keeper. It's on my Top 20 list. Simply superb!
Roberson's Lady
of the Glen has everything I love in a Scottish historical romance: an epic
love story, a noble hero, a strong heroine, real history (the massacre of
Glencoe), attention to detail and enough suspense and drama to keep me turning
pages. And a wonderful hero and heroine. Even the music of the Highlands is
included. I could hear the pipes and their mournful sound as Roberson described
them.
The story begins in 1682 when Catriona (“Cat”)
Campbell first encounters Alasdair (“Dair”) Og MacDonald. She is an awkward,
uncomely girl raised like one of her brothers by her drunken father, but Dair
pays her a compliment when no one else does, telling her that she has “bonnie
eyes…all bluey-green and bright. The sort of eyes a Highlander likes to come
home to.” How could Cat ever forget him after that? Not even though he is one
of the dreaded MacDonalds, the enemies of clan Campbell, could she fail to
harbor a tenderness for him.
Much happens in this intricately woven tale that
spans a decade. It’s the time when King James was exiled to France and William
and Mary ruled England. The Scots battle each other as much as the English.
Grey John Campbell, Earl of Breadalbane seeks to be the power behind the throne
and he thinks it is William who will sit on that throne. He exerts his
influence to unite the clans, pretending to support King Jamie, while planning
on serving the Highland clans up on a silver platter to William. The clans
don’t trust him but the lairds have little choice, seeing the English Ft.
William erected as a symbol of the English dominance.
Famous battles like Killiecrankie are vividly
described as Dair fights with the MacDonalds of Glencoe and the Stewarts of
Appin. Both the MacDonalds and the Campbells kill each other’s young men caught
reeving cattle, and Dair saves Cat from harm, and she saves his life. All this
while another woman shares Dair’s bed. Then Cat’s father agrees to wed her to
the Earl of Breadalbane’s son, Duncan Campbell in exchange for money to pay his
many debts.
Perhaps the most intense moment is the Massacre of
Glencoe when the Campbells, joined with the treachery of the English, including
the king, murder nearly the entire clan of MacDonalds without provocation. Still
remembered to this day, the massacre of Glencoe was a great perfidy on the part
of the Campbells and England. A very sad chapter in Scotland’s history. As
Roberson says of Glencoe, “’Tis a glen of sorrows, an empty place of blood and
broken stone, of charred timber and burial cairns.”
I did not want to put this one down. The author
truly captured the heart of the Highlands and the characters she vividly
portrays bring to life one of the most incredible periods of Scotland’s
history.
If you love Scotland and real Highlander
romance—the deep ones—you will love this book! It does have a happy ending,
too.
Highly recommended.
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