"THE CALL"

Title:The Twilight Laird
Author: Rhoda Clarkson
Genre: Historical Romance
Review Rating: Five Stars
Reviewer: Linda Hays-Gibbs

     This is a lovely story with  in depth characters and twisting plot. Exciting and warm dialogue with some humor and full fleshed characters are running over between the covers. This author is a talented story teller.
     Miss Mariah Lawrence is a wealthy woman that feels she has everything she could ever hope for except one thing. She doesn't know how to find this ultimate happiness after all she has beauty, heath and money and the most perfect of fiancées. There is just some reason she postpones her wedding over and over again. She can't figure out what the problem could be.
     Then she meets Dr. James MacGregor. He is the most frustrating, rude, antagonistic, uncouth, irrational,egotistical, insulting man she has ever met. Then why did she find him so intriguing? Why did she want to see him?
     James MacGregor instantly dislikes this English invader of his ancestral home. She thinks she knows what his people like better than he and presumes too much. His family owned the castle for centuries but his father gambled it away to Mariah's father, then killed himself. It wasn't fair. He lost his father because of her father.  It was his home. She was just visiting and making promises to his people that she would never keep. He resented she owned his castle and lands and he resented that he wanted her from the first moment he laid eyes on her.
  Mariah lost her parents and is visiting her cousin Irene, Aunt Harriet and Uncle George at her property, Glasdun Castle. Her Uncle has supervised this estate for her for 15 years but she needed to check on the people of her estate. She was disappointed in her Uncle's methods when she found her tenants in great distress. She went to work trying to relieve their problems. Her heart was always willing to help the unfortunate.
    All her relatives could suggest was she should marry Edward, her betrothed quickly before he is snatched away. They were right but she just couldn't. She needed more time.
    Things progress with Mariah as she learns how deeply others have suffered because of her Uncle. The plot takes you through the lives of not only Mariah but the crofters and farmers on her land and the MacGregors..
     Dr MacGregor informs her of many disturbing things for which her family is responsible. She doesn't believe him but her eyes tell her there is some truth in his words.
     The problem is that Mariah and James should be enemies but her heart isn't cooperating.
     This is a page turner and a lovely romance with many twists and turns. I have it Five Stars.
    I enjoyed reading this lovely romantic story.
Linda Hays-Gibbs