Patricia Potter, Beloved Warrior

Beloved Warrior

Patricia Potter

Berkley, Apr 2007, $7.99

ISBN 0425215733

For six years, Patrick Maclean has been held prisoner on a Spanish slave ship waiting for an opportunity to escape. He finally sees the right moment and leads a successful mutiny with his plan to go straight to his Scottish clan.

However, still a gentleman in spite of his horrendous mistreatment, Patrick learns two women were on board the vessel so he assumes their protection from his peers. When he learns their identities are the daughter of the ship's owner Juliana Mendoza and her maid Carmita, he wants to hand the former to the mutineers as he loathes her father for what he did to him. Still he does the right thing by both women though Juliana does not trust him. On the way to Scotland they make love and fall in love, but she is engaged to another aristocrat; to break their upcoming nuptials would prove lethal to her mother.

The third Maclean, early-sixteenth-century romance (see BELOVED STRANGER and BELOVED IMPOSTER) is a superior historical tale starring two strong characters whose love is the worst thing that could happen to either of them. Patrick is terrific as he cherishes the daughter of the man he loathes; Juliana is trapped in an untenable dilemma caused by her father as she loves her Patrick, but must marry someone else for the sake of her mother. Subgenre fans will gain immense pleasure from all three Maclean tales.

Harriet Klausner