Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Devil's Own-Veronica Wolff

Devil's Own
Veronica Wolff
Berkley, Mar 1 2011, $7.99
ISBN 9780425240182

In 1647 in Aberdeen, Scotland, someone abducts ten years old Aidan MacAlpin from his uncle’s home Dunnottar Castle. His twin brother Cormac and their playmate Marjorie are helpless to prevent the kidnapping.

Seventeen hateful years later, Aidan finally escapes from the pirates who took him to the Indies. He comes home, but is not the friendly person he was as he has one objective: to enact revenge on those who enslaved him. However to succeed he needs to read; so the illiterate Aidan hires bookworm Elspeth Josephina Farquharson to teach him. She understands how he feels as her father needs money that he can waste on his vices so he plans to sell his daughter in holy matrimony. As the pair studies the Book of Common Prayer and Shakespeare’s sonnets, they fall in love. However, giving away his heart intrudes on his life’s mission, but not giving away his heart intrudes on his soul; while her father objects to him and his past is sailing to Aberdeen.

The abducted twin’s seventeenth century romance (see Devil's Highlander for Cormac’s tale) is a fabulous historical. Aidan suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after almost two decades of pirate imprisonment; his mind insists on revenge while his heart disagrees since he fell in love with his teacher. Readers will enjoy this superb sequel as everyone will agree that Elspeth would make a lovely pirate bride if Aidan can move passed his understandable obsession.

Harriet Klausner

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