Welcome to my weekly feature where authors share about the hobbies, careers, or passions of their characters.
I’m pleased to introduce today’s guest, Alina K. Field…
“Highland Brigade”
Finnley Macbeth, the hero of my latest release, Fated Hearts, A Love After All Retelling of the Scottish Play, is a major in the Highland Brigade, now back in Britain after lengthy service in the Peninsular Wars.
For the past twenty years, his career has been leading men into battle against the French, both in Flanders and Spain. He fought in brutal battles in Badajoz and Salamanca, was welcomed with other troops into Madrid, suffered through the humiliating retreat from Burgos, and with the rest of the army, licked his wounds during the winter lull that followed. His focus had always been the next march, the next battle, and he preferred that to the dark moments when he had time to think.
With the war over, he’s had too many of those dark moments. At loose ends now, he’s recovering from a wound and suffering from memories of past battles and troubled by the Sight, which is bringing him terrifying visions of future dangers.
He fled Scotland after a devastating divorce from a wife who believed betrayed him. Upon returning to Britain, he went directly to London seeking another way to serve, in the army or in government, another way to turn his attention away from the past, to hide from his self-doubt and self-recrimination. He’s landed in a London embroiled in riots and civil unrest, and his sword is needed.
But, at a society event, he encounters a ghost from his past, his ex-wife, and then he meets the daughter he denied was his—and knows that everything he believed to be true was a lie.
As he comes to grips with his past, and his need for redemption before he can move on to the next battle, an old enemy surfaces and Macbeth the warrior is called to battle again.
Buy link:
Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/bQdyPP
Fated Hearts, A Love After All Retelling of the Scottish Play
Part of the Tragic Characters in Classic Lit Series.
Blurb:
Plagued by hellish memories and rattling visions of battle to come, a Scottish Baron returning from two decades at war meets the daughter he denied was his, and the wife he divorced, and learns that everything he’d believed to be true was a lie. What he can’t deny is that she’s the only woman he’s ever loved. They’re not the young lovers they once were, but when passion flares, it burns more hotly than ever it did in their youth.
They soon discover, it wasn’t fate that drove them apart, but a jealous enemy, who played on his youthful arrogance and her vulnerability. Now that old enemy has resurfaced, more treacherous than ever. When his lady falls into a trap, can he reach her in time to rescue this love that never died?
Excerpt:
A crush was what they called these suffocating occasions, and the term was apt.
Major Finnley Macbeth, Scottish baron and late of his majesty’s Highland Brigade, shifted his weight from the leg that still ached like the devil, and scanned the room for his quarry, an undersecretary in the Home Office who he’d met at the army’s winter quarters in Frenada.
From his spot near a damask covered wall, he measured each breath, trying to calm his rising unease. The heavy scent of perfume mixed with fine beeswax and hothouse florals unsettled more than his stomach. The shimmering silks and waving plumes threatened to stir the disquieting visions plaguing him lately.
Fire, explosions, rain, the screams of men and horse.
He squeezed his hands into fists. These were not the hellish memories of the recent past, dammit, but rattling visions of some battle yet to come.
Or not. Foretelling the future was for Travellers and crones, wasn’t it? Not battle-hardened men like himself. Best keep his purpose in mind—he was here to track down Sir Thomas Abernathy.
His gaze swept the room, seeking the distinctive bald pate. In spite of his own forty-three years, his eyesight was still keen enough to make out a sniper or spot the dust of a fleeing stag. Keen enough as well to relish the deep décolletages and clinging, delicate, almost transparent skirts on display this night, a vision far more cheering than the one the Sight was showing him.
A more modestly clad woman stood alone halfway across the ballroom, her back turned to him, surveying the room as he was doing.
A memory stabbed him. He’d once known a lass with hair like this, so abundant, so near to black. The lady tonight had crowned all the loveliness with dark feathers, like a glorious cormorant. His hand itched to pull out those feathers and rake his hands through the tumble of hair, as he’d once done…
He caught a steadying breath. It couldn’t be her. He’d simply been without a woman too long.
And these visions plaguing him of he knew not what? That foolishness grew from naught but fatigue, the wages of war, and the steady company of too much death.
Yet he couldn’t turn away. As he watched, she pivoted one way, and then the other, allowing a glimpse of dangling earbobs and a firm chin.
Drawn to her, he stepped out on his bad leg just as she turned.
Pain shot through his hip. The room threatened to fall away but he held onto the pain, let it shore him up whilst he swore a silent curse.
It was her.
Author Bio and links:
Award winning and USA Today bestselling author Alina K. Field earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and German literature, but prefers the much happier world of romance fiction. Though her roots are in the Midwestern U.S., after six very, very, very cold years in Chicago, she moved to Southern California, where she shares a midcentury home with her husband and a spunky, blond rescued terrier. She is the author of several Regency romances, including the 2014 Book Buyer’s Best winner, Rosalyn’s Ring. Though hard at work on her next series of romantic adventures, she loves to hear from readers!
Website: https://alinakfield.com/
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Author Alicia Dean 