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I'm not supposed to
have a favorite, am I? But I admit it—except
for the Drákon Series, The Truelove
Bride tops my list.
(Shhh. Don't tell the other books!)
One hundred years ago there lived
a laird and his lady, and she was the fairest lady to
ever grace the lands. Her hair was light as moonlight,
her eyes were the color of the rarest heather flowers,
her brows black as jet.
The laird loved his lady fair and
she him, both of them ruling just and right over their
clan. It was the days of riches for them, of long summers
and gentle winters, when the mountains still sang their
songs at night and the deer were plump and plentiful.
Each day was a jewel in the mind of God, and the Clan
Kincardine was the most blessed of all people.
Into this peace came an evil faerie,
who had watched the laird's lady for such a time until
he fell into envy....
The Truelove Bride is the story
of Avalon d'Farouche and Marcus Kincardine, two people
whose fates are irrevocably intertwined into a fabulous
lover's knot. This is a romance with magic and mystery,
and the promise of a rich, satisfying adventure in love.
Lady Avalon was born with a secret,
one she is desperate to hide from the rest of the world
and even from herself: she has the gift of second sight,
a strange power within her that can allow her to know
the hearts and the minds of others.
She was also born with a burden: she
represents the end of a hundred-year-old curse laid
upon the Clan Kincardine, a proud but hungry people
who will do anything to get her into their family. Avalon
fulfills all the requirements of the warrior maiden
foretold to end their curse: She has the unique beauty
of her ancestress, the wife of the laird in the legend.
She has the Sight. And she has the fighting skills necessary
to be a true warrior.
She is the destined bride of their
laird, Marcus Kincardine, who has been away on a crusade
for most of Avalon's life. Betrothed since her birth,
Avalon grew up with the story of the curse so deeply
ingrained into her tumultuous childhood that she is
desperate to escape it.
When a savage raid on her family castle
killed her father, the child Avalon was rescued by the
father of Marcus, Hanoch Kincardine, and then hidden
away in a remote Highland village.
For seven long years she was presumed
dead but secretly raised by him, yet Hanoch proved to
be a brutal man. To fulfill the requirements of his
family's legend he molded Avalon ruthlessly into a reflection
of the warrior maiden said to end the curse.
Now grown and living in London, Avalon
has no plans to marry anyone. And the last thing she
intends is to hand over her life to the son of the monster
who raised her. She wants nothing to do with the legend
that has ruled her life up to now; despite her own gift,
she despises superstition and the Kincardine curse that
has manipulated her very identity.
In a sense she is a woman without
a home, without any allegiances at all except to survival.
When her English cousin and guardian summons her back
to her childhood castle of Trayleigh, Avalon leaps at
the opportunity.
But all is not what it seems at Trayleigh;
Avalon finds herself in the midst of a dangerous plot
to wed her to yet another man in an effort to gain her
wealth. She plans her escape, but before she can act,
she is kidnapped on the very night of her wedding by
a new man, a stranger whose touch makes her feel strangely
alive again.
This is Marcus Kincardine, back at
last from his crusade in the Holy Land to claim his
promised bride.
A dark knight with secrets and mysteries
riddling his own past, Marcus has every intention of
wedding Avalon and fulfilling his destiny with her.
Yet he senses immediately that this lady is more than
a prize to him, more than even a woman of vivid beauty
and uncommon intelligence. She is his match.
Avalon and Marcus begin their battle
of wits and willpower, each one determined to win the
war—but it's going to
take both of them to realize that their destiny is more
than just marriage and the completion of a legend.
It is true love.
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