Bride of Dunloch — Veronica Bale

Author Veronica Bale's debut novel, Bride of Dunloch, is a gripping story of love and conflict in the time of the first Scottish War of Independence, and of one young girl's struggle to determine for herself what is right and what is wrong.

In the watery grey light of a late spring dawn, two forces meet to oppose one another at the main gate of Dunloch Castle, an imposing structure nestled deep in the Scottish Highlands. On the attacking side are the MacGillivrays -- a clan dispossessed of its ancestral lands and home because its members would not swear loyalty to the English King Edward the First. Dunloch is theirs, and they will take it back -- by any means necessary.

So is the world in which Jane Sewell, a young and naive English girl of noble birth whose hand has been given away in marriage, finds herself. It is a land that is as bloody and brutal as it is beautiful. But when she stumbles upon a wounded Scottish warrior from the enemy MacGillivray clan, her compassionate nature will not allow her to abandon him. Against her better judgement, she resolves to help him in secret.

As tensions at Dunloch intensify, however, Jane finds herself torn between her duty -- and her heart. For in these Scottish Highlands, loyalties can change as quickly as the weather ...