Sasha Lord, Under A Wild Sky

Under A Wild Sky

Sasha Lord

Signet, Feb 2004, $6.99, 432 pp.

ISBN: 045121028X

At Castle Roseneath, Ronin McTaver survives the murders of his family though he feels haunted by the cries of his one sister who did not have time to receive the poison from their desperate mother to stop their betrayer Lothian from raping and torturing them. An earthquake saved his sister with death and Ronin escapes without revealing the secrets of the tapestry of the Second Hunt that is a roadmap to the Scottish Gold.

Ronin flees to the "safety: of the evil Loch Nidean Forest. Inside the forbidden forest, Ronin faces a new foe, but captures the boy leader of his attackers. Using his prisoner as a hostage he forces the forest fighters to cede him safety to the ocean. Ronin is stunned that he is attracted to a male especially an underage lad. He is unaware that his prisoner is a she. As an inferno threatens the forest, thinking that Lothian's mercenaries caused it and how he failed his siblings, Ronin vows to keep the lad safe even from his own unwanted desire, but what will happen when he learns that Kal is a female who wants him too?

UNDER A WILD SKY is a tremendous Scottish historical romance that fans will appreciate and place immense pressure on debut author Sasha Lord to match the intensity of this descriptive novel. Ronin is a wonderful protagonist struggling with guilt for living and with his growing attraction towards his too young "male" prisoner. Kal seems mystical as she lives in a forest feared by outsiders with her only true friend being a Scottish wild McCat. This is a winner for sub-genre readers.

Harriet Klausner