Review: Hero of my heart
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 21, 2013
A vicar's daughter, with a greedy brother is drugged and offered for sale at a country tavern after her father dies. Alasdair, a depressed gentleman, pays for her and lets her sleep in his bed for the night, then having heard her story offers to take her to Scotland and wed her to save her name though she is not of his class. Mary Smith, a schoolteacher, decides that the Marquis must be insane - but she cannot very well refuse.Alasdair is an opium addict to quell battle memories; in 1814 the reign of Napoleon is not long over. Devoid of opium, he goes into withdrawal and Mary, not understanding, thinks he is ill - a frightening prospect. She wants to go to London to search for her mother, not knowing if she'll even be welcomed. Without a man's protection or money she won't get very far, so she decides to look after her potential husband, even if that means fighting off a highwayman and well-bred rogues who intend to discredit Alasdair and call him unfit to inherit.The characters and situations are so different in this romance that it holds the reader's attention, and Mary is a fine practical girl, unmarried at twenty-five, determined to survive. The blacksmith's wedding is brief, far from the society wedding that Alasdair could have expected. Mary is better suited than most fine misses to managing money and a recalcitrant student, but she still has a long road to face before London.I thought Alasdair's withdrawal symptoms ended rather quickly. Opium was available as an ingredient of laudanum, though Megan Frampton shows the concentrated form as pills. I really disliked the robotic punctuation of "This. Is. My. Coachman." Not only does it read poorly, English aristocracy didn't and don't speak that way. There is a lot of travelling by various means, bringing home the reality that travel took a long time when the fastest one could cover any real distance was eight miles an hour. Both protagonists are on a journey of self-discovery, and they learn that they are stronger together than apart. HERO OF MY HEART is an interesting adult historical romance novel.