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Sunday, January 10, 2010
Seduced By A Rogue by Amanda Scott review
Here's what the publisher's say,
A fair-haired beauty at 19, Lady Mairi is heiress apparent to her father Lord Dunwythie's rich barony. He has carefully taught her how to manage their estates, but a feud between his clan and the Maxwell clan is brewing as the two families edge toward a clan war - their dispute over money owed. Mairi's father believes he owes nothing, and of course Mairi sides with him.
When the impulsive and blue-eyed Rob Maxwell chances to meet Mairi in a barley field, they feel instant attraction, despite their families' antagonisms. Knowing he must put his clan first, Rob enacts a plan to force Dunwythie to pay his debt: Rob kidnaps Mairi, making the abduction appear the work of a stranger; then he and his sheriff-brother offer to help Dunwythis rescue his daughter IF, and only if, he will pay them the monies due. Yet after Rob captures Mairi's body, she captures his heart. When Dunwythie summons the aid of the most powerful clan in all Scotland (the Douglases), clan-tensions rise to a fever pitch. Love takes its own feverish course, as Mairi and Rob join forces to prevent a clash between hot-headed clans, and to protect their budding love.
Five Fun Facts About Seduced By A Rogue
1. A friend asked me if I might be interested in a story about a woman who nearly began a clan war. As a result, I based the plot for Seduced by a Rogue on events described in an unpublished sixteenth-century manuscript he had found, by a Lady Maxwell who described fourteenth-century events involving her husband’s Maxwell ancestors. According to her ladyship’s rather biased description, the lady Mairi Dunwythie’s father was the fractious one in the conflict. Since I wanted to tell the tale from both sides, it took some digging to discover Lord Dunwythie’s most likely reason for refusing to comply with Alexander Maxwell’s demands.
2. The biggest challenge of this book was to make the hero, Robert Maxwell’s, behavior plausible. The manuscript provides specific details, but to reconcile them with the romantic ending of Mairi and Robert’s story presented a real puzzle until I decided that only one plausible explanation existed.
3. The title of Seduced by a Rogue can be read two ways, because the rogue can be either the hero or the heroine. The reader must decide which one it is.
4. The Solway Firth has one of the strangest tide patterns on the planet. Instead of the usual six hours and twenty minutes between tides, a tide in the Solway Firth can take as little as three and a half hours to flood and can come in on a roaring wall of water, the spray from which can be seen for miles. It can take nine hours to ebb. Other, similarly-formed waterways have such tides, but the Solway is particularly noted for them. The difference in high and low water can be as great as twenty-six feet.
5. While I was writing Seduced by a Rogue, a new kitten adopted us. Although I love cats, I rarely put them in my books. However, when our new kitten, a particularly fierce and funny little beast, stubbornly kept climbing all over me and my keyboard as I tried to write, somehow he also strolled into Seduced by a Rogue as Tiggie Whiskers. His favorite trick is to drape himself over my left shoulder and peer at the screen as if he is checking out everything I write. The wee editor’s real name is Willie Magee.
My Thoughts
This was my first experience reading Amanda Scott, and I must say that I will defiantly be reading more. I was immediately drawn into the Scottish Lowlands with the use of the author's vivid descriptions of this amazing land. Not only was the time period, area, and clans of Scotland well researched, the author also paid careful attention to the dialect of the Scottish Lowlands. An amazing book is one that not only conveys an interesting storyline but also possesses the ability to take you along on the journey, and Seduced By A Rogue is that book indeed. Amanda Scott has also captured the strife of Clan war that was a constant plague in Scotland. Although I as a reader of both Scottish fiction and nonfiction would have loved to seen a bit of Gaelic thrown into the story, I do have to say that Amanda Scott has captured the essence of the Scottish Lowlands.
About the author Amanda Scott
Amanda Scott is the author of over 50 romance novels and the recipient of the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA Award. She lives in Folsom, California, outside of Sacramento. She is a fourth-generation Californian. Her website is: http://home.att.net/~amandascott
This book was provided by Hachette Book Group, Thanks Anna
If you enjoyed reading Seduced by a Rogue please you may also enjoy these other books;
Nonfiction
1-Scotland: The Autobiography 2,000 Years of Scottish History By Those Who Saw It Happen By Rosemary Goring
2-Clans and Families of Scotland: The History of the Scottish Tartan (Hardcover)
by Alexander Fulton
3-Scots-English/English-Scots Dictionary
~ David Ross (Compiler), Gavin D. Smith (Compiler)
Fiction
1-Why We Don't Kill Spiders, A Tale Of Bannockburn
By Bo Macreery
2-Thorn in My Heart (First in the Lowland Fiction Series)
By Liz Curtis Higgs
3-Fair is the Rose (Second in the Lowland Fiction Series)
By Liz Curtis Higgs
4-Whence Came a Prince (Third and final book in the Lowland Fiction Series)
By Liz Curtis Higgs
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