This week, we're pleased to welcome author Alison Stuart again with her latest novel, CLAIMING OF THE REBEL'S HEART. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. The author will offer a free copy of Claiming of the Rebel's Heart to a lucky blog visitor. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win. Here's the blurb.
War divides families…love unites hearts…
Herefordshire, England 1643
As the English Civil War divides England and tears families
apart, Kinton Lacey castle is one of the brave few loyal to the roundhead
cause.
With her father away, Deliverance Felton will do whatever it
takes to defend her family home against the royalist forces ranged against it.
She can shoot and wield a sword as well as any man and anything she needs to
know about siege warfare she has learned from a book...but no book can prepare
her for what is to come.
Captain Luke Collyer, soldier of fortune and a man with his
own reasons for loyalty to the parliamentary cause, is sent to relieve the
castle. Everything he knows about siege warfare in general and women in
particular he has learned from experience, but when it comes to Deliverance
Felton has he met his match?
**An Excerpt from Claiming the Rebel's Heart**
Deliverance looked up at him,
the tears rolling down her cheeks and regret for his harsh tone plucked at his
conscience.
“Will it be all right, Luke?”
He knew what she meant. She
had remembered the terrible gun and the ruthless efficiency of Farrington’s
well-trained troops. Luke resisted a sudden, inexplicable urge to draw her in
his arms, kiss away the tears and tell her, yes of course it would all be all
right.
He would be lying.
When he didn’t respond, she lowered
her head, tears dropping on to her skirts. She wiped her face with her left
arm. “Poor Kinton Lacey,” she said in a voice muffled by her sleeve. “It was
never built to withstand a weapon like that.”
Luke had no comfort to give
her. Kinton Lacey had been built to withstand bows and arrows or at the worse,
slingshots, not a siege gun the size of the Thunderer.
He knelt down beside her.
“Deliverance,” he said, using her given name for the first time. “Deliverance,”
he repeated softly and laid a hand on her dark head. “What do you want to do?”
She shook her head. “I don’t
know. I just can't give it up, Luke.”
He raised his right hand, and
touched her hair. She made no protest, leaning her head against his chest. He
stroked the dark, tangled locks and she sighed, closing her eyes. This time he
surrendered to his impulse and folded her in his arms. She had shown incredible
bravery and kneeling on the ground with this strange, defiant little woman in
his arms, he made a silent vow to do whatever it took to protect her, save her
castle, and make it right for her.
Sir John Felton’s daughter. What was he doing?
He disengaged her and rose to
his feet.
“We have to keep moving,
Mistress Felton,” he said. “Farrington’s men will be looking for us. On your
feet.”
Website: http://www.alisonstuart.com
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Twitter: @AlisonStuart14
