The heroine is about to be burnt at the stake for witchcraft when she's saved by the hero and his men. Then hero has a very sick son and she is his last hope for a cure. But the heroine doesn't believe she's a witch and she's certainly no healer. Though she does have common sense and isn't ruled by the religion of her time. She at first wants nothing more than to escape her new prisoner to seek revenge for her murder father but it's very soon that she becomes attached to the boy and will do anything to save him. The hero was so all over the map when it came to his personality that I found it near impossible to follow. When he's speaking to people outside his clan he puts on this crazy, aloof act. When he's speaking to his clansmen he's easy going and quite lax with his leadership. When it comes to the heroine, more often than not he's yelling at her for something. This was probably the first time, at least in my memory, that I really truly disliked the hero. I found him to stupid, ignorant and utterly selfish. He's absolutely tortured by the death of his wife. That's fine, that's the be expected by how much he loved her. But he sleeps with the heroine while still admitting to be madly in love with the dead wife. He instantly prays for forgiveness and I never really felt the love he had for the heroine to be authentic. It felt like a possession. Also, his clansman tried to kill the girl about 5 times during the book and he never addressed punishment onto them. It really did feel like had very little control over his people and that I didn't like. A laird should have the psychical and mental presence to hold power. He didn't give two shits about his son, that's a fact. The boy lay dying and never once did he make the effort to sit with him or offer him comfort. True, he was scared to death to lose him and normally there's that break through in a character that wakes him up to how much he's hurting other people but that never happened with this story. The boy was completely forgotten with the uproar over the heroine and the other clan wanting her returned. I finished the book before thinking ' hey, what the hell happened to the child?'. His mysterious sickness, (which had to be poisoning, there's no other way to explain him becoming violently ill after certain meals) was never explained. Ok, so... he eats bread for the rest of his life? that's the solution? There were serious plot holes that were so blatant that it seriously throws you off. Also, the heroine is a witch. Despite the refusal of having any powers, she can and does control the weather and eases pain in others. I did like the heroine as a character. I found her to be level headed, down to earth and kind. She wasn't forward thinking in her healing duties but instead she was only caring for the comfort of her patients. Overall, this book was a disappointment. I felt jarred between the drama of some scenes and the weird comedic tones of others. I wish the author had picked what theme she wanted and stuck to it. ( )