Seduced by a Rogue by Amanda ScottA fair-haired beauty at 19, Lady Mairi is heiress apparent to her father Lord Dunwythie's rich barony. He has carefully taught her how to manage their estates, but a feud between his clan and the Maxwell clan is brewing as the two families edge toward a clan war - their dispute over money owed. Mairi's father believes he owes nothing, and of course Mairi sides with him.
When the impulsive and blue-eyed Rob Maxwell chances to meet Mairi in a barley field, they feel instant attraction, despite their families' antagonisms. Knowing he must put his clan first, Rob enacts a plan to force Dunwythie to pay his debt: Rob kidnaps Mairi, making the abduction appear the work of a stranger; then he and his sheriff-brother offer to help Dunwythis rescue his daughter IF, and only if, he will pay them the monies due. Yet after Rob captures Mairi's body, she captures his heart. When Dunwythie summons the aid of the most powerful clan in all Scotland (the Douglases), clan-tensions rise to a fever pitch. Love takes its own feverish course, as Mairi and Rob join forces to prevent a clash between hot-headed clans, and to protect their budding love.
Five Fun Facts
1. A friend asked me if I might be interested in a story about a woman who nearly began a clan war. As a result, I based the plot for Seduced by a Rogue on events described in an unpublished sixteenth-century manuscript he had found, by a Lady Maxwell who described fourteenth-century events involving her husband’s Maxwell ancestors. According to her ladyship’s rather biased description, the lady Mairi Dunwythie’s father was the fractious one in the conflict. Since I wanted to tell the tale from both sides, it took some digging to discover Lord Dunwythie’s most likely reason for refusing to comply with Alexander Maxwell’s demands.
2. The biggest challenge of this book was to make the hero, Robert Maxwell’s, behavior plausible. The manuscript provides specific details, but to reconcile them with the romantic ending of Mairi and Robert’s story presented a real puzzle until I decided that only one plausible explanation existed.
3. The title of Seduced by a Rogue can be read two ways, because the rogue can be either the hero or the heroine. The reader must decide which one it is.
4. The Solway Firth has one of the strangest tide patterns on the planet. Instead of the usual six hours and twenty minutes between tides, a tide in the Solway Firth can take as little as three and a half hours to flood and can come in on a roaring wall of water, the spray from which can be seen for miles. It can take nine hours to ebb. Other, similarly-formed waterways have such tides, but the Solway is particularly noted for them. The difference in high and low water can be as great as twenty-six feet.
5. While I was writing Seduced by a Rogue, a new kitten adopted us. Although I love cats, I rarely put them in my books. However, when our new kitten, a particularly fierce and funny little beast, stubbornly kept climbing all over me and my keyboard as I tried to write, somehow he also strolled into Seduced by a Rogue as Tiggie Whiskers. His favorite trick is to drape himself over my left shoulder and peer at the screen as if he is checking out everything I write. The wee editor’s real name is Willie Magee.
GIVEAWAY
I have five copies of this paperback to giveaway courtesy of Hachette Books. For your first entry (MUST DO THIS ONE FOR ANY OTHER ENTRIES TO COUNT) What is your favorite romance character's name - first or last? I just find some of them very interesting - like Dunwythis. Also leave your email address.
For additional entries you can sign up to follow (old followers let me know), Twitter or post it on your blog. Each entry must have it's own comment. (Four entries total.)
