A Highlander's Temptation

Publisher's Summary. Darroc MacConacher spends sleepless nights dreaming of a raven-haired beauty who makes him ache with desire. Then his dream comes true: the lady with her lush curves and fair skin appears shipwrecked on his shores. Darroc is immediately drawn to her strength and beauty, and from the moment she lays eyes on this powerful, broad-shouldered warrior, Lady Arabella MacKenzie knows she'll never want another man.

But theirs is a forbidden love. The MacKenzies drove the MacConachers from their lands and destroyed their honor. Now, Darroc can use this sapphire-eyed seductress to shatter his foes. Yet how can he deny the passion that burns between him and Arabella, and ruin the one woman who touches his very soul?

Review. by Renee A.J. Lady Arabella, the beloved and beautiful older daughter of Duncan MacKenzie and Lady Linnet, is ready for adventure. Her younger sister is married and pregnant with her first child, while Lady Arabella awaits a new round of suitors, who (hopefully) won't be chased away by her father's fierce and protective ways. In A Highlander's Temptation, the author aptly describes the desire for an intimate love and blazing passion that motivates Lady Arabella to demand that her father allow her to visit the Seal Isles. Although this is a historical romance, modern readers will be able to identify with the heroine's need to escape from her younger sister’s descriptions of passionate newlywed encounters and overprotective parents. With the grudging permission of her father and the firm support of her mother, Lady Arabella and her guardsmen set off to tour the Seal Isles.

Unfortunately, her ship is attacked by Vikings; she is swept into the violent seas and almost drowns. Luckily for Lady Arabella she washes ashore on the sheltered island, MacConacher’s Isle, the home of Darroc MacConacher and the remnants of the MacConacher Clan. The two are instantly attracted – she with his tall and powerful build and he with her glossy raven curls and eyes of the deepest blue. Yet the course of passion, attraction, and love rarely runs smoothly. As she slowly regains her strength and charms the MacConacher Clan, she learns that the Clan is low in number, their lands taken by the Crown because they supported an upstart seeking to be king and many were slain by her grandfather due to a feud. Darroc fights his feelings for her – knowing that her MacKenzie Clan had driven his family from their lands. Yet the two are able to overcome the feuds of the past and discover the intimacy, passion, and love that seems predestined for them.

With the help of a band of Norsemen, Clan MacConacher defeats the Black Vikings, restoring the fortunes of their clan. Darroc, however, has come to believe that Lady Arabella only wants him because she is under the spell of the magic relic he holds as leader of his clan. His honor forces him to return Lady Arabella to her family, because he believes that her love is only a fiction brought on by the relic. Ignoring her protests – he tells her that he doesn't love her and sends his men to deliver her to her father. As several days pass without her he realizes that “unless he wished to live the rest of his life in darkness, he really had no choice but go after her.” Of course, as any good romance should end – Darroc mans a ship and goes after his heart’s desire - overcoming her father’s gruffness and publicly declaring his love for Lady Arabella.

A Highlander’s Temptation is an old-fashioned historical romance that quietly works to restore one’s faith in the sweetness of true love.


Publisher: Forever, Hachette Book Group (October 1, 2009), 400 pages
Review copy provided courtesy of the Publisher.