Ah well. Married by a quirk of fate, he is a survivor of months of living hell at the hands of a vicious Afghani warlord. She is a jilted bride. They decamp instantly to a ruined faux-castle – not the ancestral pile but good enough because she needs a party – a big one – to show the world she married the right man. He explains that as a result of dealing with the disordered mind months of torture might cause, he doesn’t do well in crowds. She ignores this but he, brave lad, feels that as long as he as ‘access’ [a euphemism. I don’t know what it takes to get censored by Goodreads, but like the mark of Cain or a scarlet letter it doesn’t go away] to her, he’ll be OK. Meanwhile the castle is being put to rights by the local lads – crofters, who number housekeeping among their other skills. Next we are alerted to a mysterious watcher in the woods, who could only be mysterious to those distracted by thoughts of those crofters waxing and dusting. Or possibly by the mysterious blackmailers, low-rent shabby types, who pop up and clumsily demand a fortune with no evidence what-so-ever. Enter an extraneous but extreme revenge plot which has little to do with anything except it has to so it does. And so it spirals down to a happy ending. This was a good story. What caught my attention the most was the author addressed the problems that soldiers experience with PTSD when they return home. The twist is that this story takes place in the 1800s when England was in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A reminder of the horrors that soldiers face in all eras. The characters were interesting with some fun eccentrics stirred into the mix. I'll definitely read some more books by this author.
Do You like book Les Noces D'Elliot McBride (2013)?
3.5 stars - loved the concept but the internal conflicts were a little too accepted
—wendyanne
