The Border Hostage

Been rereading this today and I found myself enjoying this again. I find myself falling in love with the characters again. The revenge, jealousy, redemption, pride and stuff. Still refreshing as the first time I read it as a teenager (and here's to folks defending physical book so much, my copy broke apart, literally. Probably because the glue hardened and became less flexible). A story of a forbidden romance between an English lady and a Scottish Gypsy bastard. Unlike the title, the tone of the story doesn't carry those "stockholm syndromes" criteria as a lot of historical romances with similar plot do. I enjoyed the part with the Dacre's animosity towards the Douglas and Kennedy which evolved into a much serious plot that follows the show more events in the previous book. Neither of the characters are quite one dimensional. The antagonists have great reason to hate the other, plot twist at the right part of the book. I like the part where both main character complement each other as soulmates. Although Tina and Ram are more erotically charged than the couple in this book, I find this book withstood the test of time in my case. show less

Been rereading this today and I found myself enjoying this again. I find myself falling in love with the characters again. The revenge, jealousy, redemption, pride and stuff. Still refreshing as the first time I read it as a teenager (and here's to folks defending physical book so much, my copy broke apart, literally. Probably because the glue hardened and became less flexible). A story of a forbidden romance between an English lady and a Scottish Gypsy bastard. Unlike the title, the tone of the story doesn't carry those "stockholm syndromes" criteria as a lot of historical romances with similar plot do. I enjoyed the part with the Dacre's animosity towards the Douglas and Kennedy which evolved into a much serious plot that follows the show more events in the previous book. Neither of the characters are quite one dimensional. The antagonists have great reason to hate the other, plot twist at the right part of the book. I like the part where both main character complement each other as soulmates. Although Tina and Ram are more erotically charged than the couple in this book, I find this book withstood the test of time in my case. show less

A disappointing book with a very loose connection with historical (and other areas of) accuracy. "Strip the willow" is not a dance, it’s a set of moves you make whilst dancing. The Gay Gordons is a 19th century dance a bit out of place at a medieval Scottish border céilidh. Small, perhaps individually insignificant, errors like this on almost every page, destroyed my enjoyment of the book. The soft porn sex scenes were OK though.