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Captive of the Border Lord Brunson Clan Trilogy Book 2 Blythe Gifford 9780373297221 Books

Download As PDF : Captive of the Border Lord Brunson Clan Trilogy Book 2 Blythe Gifford 9780373297221 Books

Captive of the Border Lord Brunson Clan Trilogy Book 2 Blythe Gifford 9780373297221 Books

I really enjoyed reading this series of books. This book helped bring them together! This series is a must read!


Tags : Captive of the Border Lord (Brunson Clan Trilogy, Book 2) [Blythe Gifford] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Bessie, the selfless sister of the powerful but stubborn Brunson clan, has sacrificed herself for her family's honor and is at the mercy of the court of King James. Ill-suited to court life,Blythe Gifford,Captive of the Border Lord (Brunson Clan Trilogy, Book 2),Harlequin Historical,037329722X,Historical fiction.,Love stories.,10026988,1122,1153749,20130101,706848,AMERICAN HISTORICAL FICTION,AMERICAN LIGHT ROMANTIC FICTION,Canada,FICTION Romance Historical,FICTION Romance Historical General,Fiction,Fiction - Romance,Fiction-Romance,General Adult,Great BritainBritish Isles,Historical fiction,Historical romance;Tudor,Love stories,MASS MARKET,Monograph Series, any,Romance - Historical - General,RomanceHistorical,Romance: Historical,FICTION Romance Historical General,Romance - Historical - General,Fiction - Romance,American Historical Fiction,American Light Romantic Fiction,Historical fiction,Love stories,Fiction,Romance: Historical

Captive of the Border Lord Brunson Clan Trilogy Book 2 Blythe Gifford 9780373297221 Books Reviews

The members of the Brunson Clan get in your blood! In the first book of the trilogy, I thought Bessie was a little pedestrian vs. the marvelous Cate, and Carwell, well, he seemed a bit of a snake. That was fine, of course, since neither of them was a primary character. In this book, Blythe Gifford has done a masterful job of illumining Bessie's personality and longing for her own place in the world while still remaining a Brunson at her core. Carwell is complex, a man of secret demons and doubts, but a good man, the kind we might all hope to find. I think the book could stand alone; Gifford provides enough background without weighing down this story with extraneous information about what went before. The description of the setting and of the court at Stirling Castle are first rate. I also found the political intrigue easy to follow, and the secondary characters, such as the Marys and the Carwell servants, captivating. I'm eagerly awaiting the final book, in which dark Rob from the first two books finds love himself.
This is the second book in the Brunson clan trilogy. I recommend reading the first book before this one as the author plunges right into the story.

The hero is the Scottish border warden, and the heroine is the Brunson sister. The hero was a mysterious and intriguing character in the first book; you did not know whose side he was on (the Scots or English) and in this second book his loyalties are still a little hazy, but definitely more concrete. The heroine sacrifices herself in place of her brother as a hostage at King Jame V's court. The king is very irked at the Brunsons for not sending the men he requested and blames their reticence on his defeat at the siege against the Earl of Angus. The H/h's romance takes place at the royal court in Stirling Castle.

This book was a disappointment to me and not as engaging as the first in the trilogy. I found myself easily distracted from the story and skipping parts that were too slow and predictable. What had been a positive in the first book (no gross elaboration of historical facts and figures) became a roadblock for the author as the hero and heroine did not do much other than attend a few dinners/dances and a tournament. The hero's role as warden is a historically significant one, but Gifford did not address what that role entailed. It made the hero less of a character because, as the reader, we do not get to see this important aspect of his life and personality. The author writes that the role of warden had always historically belonged to the hero's family, but by the very omission of any real actionable events around it, it made his job less important when in fact it plays a big role in not only his persona but also the entire plot of the trilogy.

The heroine is rather lackluster. She admits to having been raised to see to the needs of others, always in the background, but you would think on her own she would have come out of her shell a little. As it turns out, her personality remains stagnant, relying on the hero to get her out of difficulties and being too innocent. In one part of the story, she doesn't realize that one of the girls she is sharing a room with is pregnant and just assumes the girl is gaining weight. Now that would make sense, except a) the heroine is not that young and at least 18, b)story is set during the Tudor period when people did not live that long (Henry VIII died at 55) so you would think people married and had children young, and c) the heroine did not live in a protective cloister - she grew up on the border lands and must have come across childbirth and procreation at some point in her life.

Overall this book is worth a read for those following the trilogy. Those who want to get a taste of Gifford's writing style should read the first in the trilogy instead and skip this one.
<Spoilers>
The serious flaw in this book is that it does not stand alone in the series well enough to be enjoyed on its own. I didn't realize when I picked this book up at the library that it was the middle book in a trilogy and the author does not do NEARLY enough to bring the uninitiated reader up to speed on what's going on with all the politics and back story. She jumps right in with references to people and events from the previous book that are apparently significant enough to have set all the major plot points in this book in motion, but she never explains to the reader just what the heck happened. Who is this Storich guy exactly? How did he escape? Who actually killed him? And why did he deserve it? What exactly was Carwell's part in it all? And what did English warden do? Why are the Brunsons constantly raiding other settlements? Why do they think defying the king is justifiable? And why the h*** do they continue to do it even after their sister is being held "hostage" by the king as a way of ensuring their good behavior? Do they care nothing for her safety and sacrifice? Basically, just what the h*** is going on???

I spent the whole book waiting for the answers to these questions to eventually get revealed so that everything would make sense....but it never did. I still don't know who did what to whom in the last book and how that resulted in this book's events. And this book leaves us with a massive amount of unanswered questions too. The whole story Bessie, Carwell and the Brunsons continue to get into deeper and deeper trouble with the king of Scotland and with the English as well, and there's absolutely no resolution to that at the end of this book. In fact, they're in the worst trouble yet at the end of this book. So it's really not a satisfying read from that perspective.

I liked Bessie as a character and Carwell too, for the most part. I was rooting for their romance to work out and obviously it does in the end because this is a romance novel. I liked the description of Bessie becoming accustomed to life at court and not having to work in the kitchens like she did at home. The three Marys were good characters too. And I liked the ways Carwell tried to protect Bessie from the dangers of a young and angry king as well as the duplicitous nobles. The snippets from his inner monologue where he continually fought with his desire for her and tried to remember to do the careful, smart thing were well done.

However I didn't like the way they finally slept together. There were so many romantic opportunities for Carwell to finally give in to his desire for Bessie and take her. Instead, the author chose to pass up all those romantic scenarios and instead have Carwell turning to Bessie because he'd had a hard day at the office and needed a little comfort. It made their first time together about something other than their raging desire and developing feelings for each other and that's lame. His iron control didn't slip because Bessie's so beautiful or because her indomitable spirit is so attractive or because she's "special," it slipped because he was pissed and disappointed about something else. That makes it seem like virtually any woman could have served his purpose for the night, rather than that he and Bessie were destined to be together. Particularly because he, um, failed to take care of her needs this first time because he was too focused on himself. That's especially un-heroic of him when he knew full well that she was a virgin before they began. So, yeah, their first time together left a lot to be desired. Although I will say that I liked the level of description the author gave. It was far from explicit and yet was more than the "fade to black" some authors do. It focused more on the feelings Bessie was experiencing, rather than what was physically going on and it worked well.

Carwell's hangups about his dead wife I could kind of take or leave. Here too I felt like there was a part of the story we were missing. We get tiny scraps of information about her all through the story, but no one ever just says "here's what happened" even at the end. Why was she so unhappy in her marriage? Did she never want to marry Carwell in the first place? Or did she want to, but then realized after the fact that married life wasn't what she'd expected? And why did her subsequent death make Carwell swear off marriage altogether? It didn't sound like he'd actually ever loved her, and their relationship was virtually nonexistent. So why did her death break his heart so badly that he'd vow to be alone forever and let the title pass to some spoiled teenage cousin? The fact that Carwell's unborn baby died along with the wife might have made sense as the reason for his heartache, except he almost never thinks about the baby all through the book. It's always all about the wife. This was another thing that I kept expecting to get explained before the end but it never did. And it REALLY never got explained to Bessie. There were a couple of things about the wife that the readers got to hear from Carwell's inner monologue that he never actually shared with her. And when Bessie turns up pregnant at the end, Carwell again lets his dead wife's memory chase away any possible joy about the situation and instead he reacts with dread, which hurts Bessie. I just didn't see the little bit we got about the wife as being a good-enough justification for his behavior.

All in all, I think if you've read the first book than you'll enjoy this one a lot more because you'll actually know what the h*** is going on, but if you haven't, then I'd say don't start the series here. For anyone who does choose to read this book, I strongly recommend the audiobook version. The narrator's Scottish accent really made the story come alive in a way just reading the words on paper wouldn't have.
I really enjoyed reading this series of books. This book helped bring them together! This series is a must read!