Stealing Sophie
Sarah Gabriel
Avon, Feb 2005, $5.99, 384 pp.
ISBN: 0060736097

In 1728 Scotland, the Carren Clan Chief Duncrieff informs his brother Connor MacPherson that he must marry Katherine MacCarran to make things right between the clans. Connor would do almost anything for his sibling and he knows he is responsible for the feud because he caused the MacCarran to be incarcerated. He abducts Kate as she travels with escort home; he marries and beds her. Afterward, the outlawed Highland Ghost as he is known learns he snatched the wrong sister; his wife is Kate's sibling Sophie.

When Sophie learns that her husband married the wrong woman, she decides to drive him crazy with kindness as her clan's fairy cup says "Love makes its own magic," figuring a vinegar thug like her husband will toss out her sweetness. Instead she soon has his clan doing her bidding as everyone is enthralled with her and Connor is thankful for his error. However, the clan feud remains volatile, threatening to destroy the growing love between the outlaw and the abducted.

STEALING SOPHIE is a solid, one-part amusing and one-part action-adventure, Scottish, historical romance starring a bewildered lead male whose toughness is overwhelmed by the pleasantness of his feisty fairy-like lass. The storyline concentrates on the changing relationship between the lead duet as Sophie takes charge through honey, but occurs in a background where the clans are battling one another. Readers will welcome newcomer Sarah Gabriel into the sub-genre clan for providing a fun historical.

Harriet Klausner