Highland Heart: Love in the Time of War
In this near-the-Highlands romance, set in 1746, young Frenchwoman Madeleine de Marnay is a 17-year-old who falls inexplicably in love with 28-year-old Colonel Gareth Eriksen at a London ball. When Madeleine travels to the Scottish Highlands to her mother’s family after the death of her parents, she aids Bonnie Prince Charlie in a daring escape from the very same Colonel Gareth Eriksen.
I mention the ages of the characters because Madeleine is described repeatedly as a “brat,” a “woman-child,” and a “chit” in Gareth’s point of view. Yet, he has insatiable and uncontrollable lust for a woman with whom he had a single conversation regarding Jacobite politics. Indeed, Gareth threatens her family in the Highlands, tells her she will hang for treason, and yet, Madeleine loves him. I had a hard time with this romance, finding the lust believable but disconcerting, and the love utterly implausible.
