The Raided Heart
by Jennifer C. Wilson
Publication Date: November 15th, 2019
Publisher: Ocelot Press
Pages: 249
Genre: Historical Romantic Adventure
A dangerous love, in dangerous times.
Northumberland, 1470s.
Ambitious reiver Will Hetherington wants to prove himself a competent man in the company of Robert Mathers, head of the village.
Headstrong Meg Mathers, Robert’s younger sister, wants to remain at her beloved home, caring for her family, the land and the village of Long Ridge where she’s grown up.
When an accident throws Meg and Will together, attraction builds, and both begin to realise they might just have met their match. But life on the 15th century border is never that simple, and Meg finds herself betrothed to the weakling son of tyrannical neighbour, Alexander Gray.
When tragedy strikes, can Meg and Will find their way back to each other, and can Will finally take his own personal revenge on Gray?
…Will was the first to see it; the tiniest spot of light, dancing down the hillside in the twilight. It would be hypnotic, beautiful, if he didn’t recognise at once what it symbolised. A raid was heading their way.
***
The lights flashed by as Meg watched from the window, hoping the show of strength from the Cliffside men would be enough to warn off the approaching gang. ‘Gang’ was going too far at this stage; it was simply a seething mass of shadow, moving in the rain-drenched twilight, the moonlight occasionally striking the metal of a chest-plate or weapon. They must be desperate, she thought, to be trying an attack in these conditions. Desperate or inexperienced. Neither was a good thing. It wasn’t light enough to tell yet if they were Scots or English, but either way, arriving like this, with no word sent in advance, they certainly weren’t friends. Any last remnant of hope for that vanished as the flaming torch fell onto the roof of the first cottage.
“Fire!” The shout rose from the throats of the Cliffside community. For a moment, Meg wasn’t sure if it was a warning to keep the current flames from spreading, or an instruction to let loose the arrows and bullets their own men had been primed with since noticing the group come over the hillside. It was, as it turned out, a combination of both.
The shouts and screams raced towards those in the safety of the bastle, as the risk of chaos loomed. However bad it got, they had to stay as calm as they could to keep their chances of surviving this.
Jennifer C. Wilson
Jennifer has been stalking dead monarchs since she was a child. It started with Mary, Queen of Scots, and now also includes Richard III. At least now it results in a story!
She won North Tyneside Libraries' Story Tyne short story competition in 2014 (no dead monarchs, but still not a cheerful read), and has been filling notebooks and hard-drives ever since. Her Kindred Spirits series, following the 'lives' of some very interesting ghostly communities, is published by Darkstroke, and her historical romances by Ocelot Press.
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