Veena’s review of The Striker (Highland Guard, Book 10) by Monica McCarty
Historical Romance published by Pocket Books 24 Nov 15
I don’t know if it was the wait or the emotional punch of the story, but I devoured this book from cover to cover in a single evening. I find the author’s research and historical notes at the end of the book as compelling as the story itself and definitely urge other readers to check them out. The writing is so vibrant that I found myself walking in Margaret’s shoes as she navigates the treacherous waters of a Scottish court at the brink of war. The gulf between Eoin and Margaret is so wide that only two hearts in love could have crossed it and yet one cannot live by love alone, as this story proves. Set against one of the most turbulent times in Scottish history, Margaret’s struggle to find the right balance between love and duty propels this story out of the ordinary and into squee worthy.
Eoin is a distant cousin and boon companion to Robert the Bruce at the Scottish court. The Scots are dividing along two distinct lines, with the noble house taking different sides when Margaret arrives at court with her family. Born and bred in a distant corner of the highlands, the only daughter of her chieftain father, the blue blooded nobility is definitely not ready to accept her free and open nature. With her father backing the Comyn faction, the political gulf between her and Eoin is unbridgeable and yet her impetuosity and their sexual chemistry leaps over all the barriers to make the impossible possible.
They find themselves man and wife and yet in the most meaningful ways they are still strangers to each other. Eoin has already been invited to join the elite band of warriors who will swing the war in Bruce’s favor, but his duties keep him away from home and his new wife. Her family’s political leanings keep him from sharing his secrets with her. Margaret finds herself far from home in a completely alien environment where she’s not truly welcome. Passion rages strong between them when they come together, but, with all else, they are not able to sustain a meaningful relationship and Margaret returns to her family, where she’s forced into an inadvertent betrayal of the husband she still loves.
Now years later, they’ve both changed and grown and set on completely different paths. Bruce is holding the winning hand, but Margaret’s father is still his enemy. Eoin plots to use Margaret as a pawn to capture her father and neutralize the threat he poses to Bruce’s campaign, only to discover that he has a son that he never knew about, and, instead of using Margaret, her father is using his son as a hostage. Both characters have done a lot of growing in a hard school and learned what is truly important to them as human beings. Has fate inadvertently given them a second chance to forge a future together, particularly since time hasn’t killed their passion for each other?
It’s Margaret’s viewpoint that I aligned with, so I definitely got a kick out of Eoin’s chagrin when he finds that his son might actually have turned out smarter than him in both battle strategy and chess. I’m looking forward to The Rock, since Thomas McGowan defends Margaret from the Scottish soldiers in Edward Bruce’s army.
Grade: A
Summary:
When Eoin MacLean decides to fight with Robert the Bruce, he knows he will earn the enmity of his new bride’s father, but he doesn’t expect Margaret MacDowell, the spirited girl he’s fallen in love with, to betray him. Blaming her—and himself for trusting her—for the disaster that led to the death of Bruce’s two brothers, Eoin cuts her out of his heart and leaves her behind with no intention of ever coming back. But when Bruce puts him in charge of conquering the troublesome southwest province of Galloway—ruled by his wife’s father—Eoin reconsiders. Especially after he learns that his treacherous wife who thinks him dead plans to remarry. That’s one wedding he has no intention of missing.]
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