New York Times bestseller Julia London’s second book in her Highland Grooms series hits the ground running. Widow Daisy Bristol, Lady Chatwick, is under a deadline to remarry, forced into matrimony by the terms of her late husband’s will. When she receives a letter from her long-lost first love, it gives her hope that, if wed she must, this time she might do so with genuine affection. She flees with her son to the family holding in Scotland, hoping to buy time until her long-ago suitor can get back to England. The first Scot she meets is a brusque, imposing man who introduces himself only as Arrendale.
Cailean MacKenzie, laird of Arrendale, doesn’t want any Londoners in his glen, but Lady Chatwick is hard to ignore. She’s unlike the usual Sassenach: He comes across her barefoot and in bedclothes, her hair uncombed. Then he spies her once again, dirtied, sweaty and sporting a bleeding scratch from clearing her own garden. And she flirts with him with bold eyes and an even bolder, sassy mouth. He doesn’t want to be interested, but his heart isn’t listening.
How is Daisy not supposed to notice when Cailean wears his plaid, displaying bare knees and a peek of his powerful thighs? He has told her in no uncertain terms that he’s not interested in her, yet a curious friendship begins to unfold between them. And soon, even that line becomes blurred as each is drawn more and more fiercely to the other.
Then Daisy’s first love, Captain Robert Spivey, arrives on the scene. Not only is he an old enemy of Cailean’s, but Spivey is a cold fish whom Cailean knows will kill the very passion that makes Daisy the woman she is. So Cailean risks his own safety to assure the union between Daisy and Spivey will never take place.
Julia London pens a lush, sweeping story of love, loyalty and cultures clashing that will keep readers glued to their seats, hearts in throats, as they turn pages at lightning speed to make sure Daisy and Cailean get their just deserts: the happily ever after both so richly deserve.
