10-11-2011, 08:03 AM
It's 1965 and Sable Lennox goes to Scotland at the request of her aunt Agnes to try and find some missing dates for her aunt's genealogy research. She is of the American branch of the Gordon Clan and will be visiting the present laird, David Kirby-Gordon at his home, Strathmuir, where all the records are kept. David, his wife Annis, and cousin Sholto all behave hostile towards Sable, so she intends to leave as soon as she has the answers she needs. When over dinner she lets on how rich aunt Agnes is, suddenly her hosts start being nice to her, hoping she'll put in a good word for them and aunt Agnes will invest in the estate's business ventures. Sable will be guest of honor at the festivities during the opening of the grouse season the next week. So Sable stays on and gets the opportunity to do some more snooping in the records, finding clues that perhaps the present laird isn't the descendant of a legitimate heir to the title, or perhaps isn't a relation at all but an impostor.
Early on, in the prologue where Sable looks back on the events two years later, the reader learns that a "he" tried to kill her, and that Annis gave her poisoned chocolate to drink, so there isn't much of a mystery as to who the bad guy is. Nevertheless, we don't know how he'll try to kill her, which still supplies a bit of suspense. Our heroine is very clever, witty, beautiful and always knows what she needs to do or say next. She reads people very well and keeps ahead of the reader all the time.
This is the second book by Elsie Lee I've read, and I was pleased to notice how in this book she helps the reader by explaining several things not known to everyman.
Cousin Sholto provides the love interest. He has a bit of a temper and isn't always very nice to Sable, which the author probably did so we could have more choices for the role of bad guy. He was 15 years older than Sable, which unfortunately was the case for a lot of heroes in gothics written in the sixties.
The story was fast-paced, well written, had a nice mood, a lovely setting, interesting people, a likeable heroine, a kilted hero, enough mystery, so I'll award it a 7 out of 10.
Early on, in the prologue where Sable looks back on the events two years later, the reader learns that a "he" tried to kill her, and that Annis gave her poisoned chocolate to drink, so there isn't much of a mystery as to who the bad guy is. Nevertheless, we don't know how he'll try to kill her, which still supplies a bit of suspense. Our heroine is very clever, witty, beautiful and always knows what she needs to do or say next. She reads people very well and keeps ahead of the reader all the time.
This is the second book by Elsie Lee I've read, and I was pleased to notice how in this book she helps the reader by explaining several things not known to everyman.
Cousin Sholto provides the love interest. He has a bit of a temper and isn't always very nice to Sable, which the author probably did so we could have more choices for the role of bad guy. He was 15 years older than Sable, which unfortunately was the case for a lot of heroes in gothics written in the sixties.
The story was fast-paced, well written, had a nice mood, a lovely setting, interesting people, a likeable heroine, a kilted hero, enough mystery, so I'll award it a 7 out of 10.
