Review: A Well-Written, Heart-Touching Scottish Historical Romance With a Beautiful Message
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 8, 2014
THE BORDER LAIRD'S BRIDE is a well-written, heart-touching Scottish historical romance. A story with a beautiful message: true love is inescapable and can surprise us by coming in the plainest, unexpected of packages.Laird Jamie Graham has a predicament. His dying father's wish is that he marry and sire an heir, but he has always vowed never to fall in love. Having witnessed the devastation of his father at the hands of his mother who betrayed him by loving another, his mission is to fulfill his father's wishes with a woman who could never tempt him to fall in love with her. As luck would have it, as Jamie is pondering his options, he happens upon the perfect candidate, Kenzie Irvine, his neighbor's forgotten, plain Jane second daughter who he just happens to catch attempting to steal his horse.In Kenzie's experience, powerful men like her father are to be avoided at all costs. as they can only be counted on to lead with their selfish wishes and desires. In her father's case, his greed allowed him to only shower attention on her beautiful fair sister, a sister whom he hoped to reap great benefit from when he married her off to the highest bidder. This neglect had turned her mother into a "shade" and herself a "shadow". "The difference was a shadow came alive with sun and light. A shadow was cast from something solid and real, something you could touch. A Shade was a patch of nothing that hid in the shadows avoiding the sun and light, avoiding life."Determined never to marry, Kenzie instead focuses on helping the less fortunate (primarily abandoned women and children from her clan). When she is finally caught, Laird Graham gives her an ultimatum: hang or marry him. Kenzie makes the only viable choice, but vows never to surrender her heart and is determined to continue her mission to help the less fortunate.Can a couple with such an inauspicious beginning ever fall in love? Ms. Butler weaves an interesting, passionate and romantic tale which answers this question. I greatly enjoyed the path which Ms. Butler chose to get to her conclusion. Perhaps my favorite part is Lord Graham. In Lord Graham, Ms. Butler crafts an admirable, loveable hero. It was thrilling to watch his heroic qualities slowly being revealed to Kenzie, leaving no doubt that he's the perfect gentleman lover and a compassionate leader through and through.If you love traditional historical romances with witty banter, strong heroines, loveable heroes, missions to help the less fortunate, and a HEA, you will not want to miss THE BORDER LAIRD'S BRIDE!Official review written by me and originally published at The Romance Reviews (TRR).