* Series Spotlight *
Thunder on the Moor Series
Thunder on the Moor Series
by Andrea Matthews
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Thunder on the Moor
Maggie Armstrong grew up enchanted by her father’s tales of blood feuds and border raids. In fact, she could have easily fallen for the man portrayed in one particular image in his portrait collection. Yet when her father reveals he was himself an infamous Border reiver, she finds it a bit far-fetched—to say the least—especially when he announces his plans to return to his sixteenth century Scottish home with her in tow.
Suspecting it’s just his way of getting her to accompany him on yet another archaeological dig, Maggie agrees to the expedition, only to find herself transported four hundred and fifty years into the past. Though a bit disoriented at first, she discovers her father’s world to be every bit as exciting as his stories, particularly when she’s introduced to Ian Rutherford, the charming son of a neighboring laird. However, when her uncle announces her betrothal to Ian, Maggie’s twentieth-century sensibilities are outraged. She hardly even knows the man. But a refusal of his affections could ignite a blood feud.
Maggie’s worlds are colliding. Though she’s found the family she always wanted, the sixteenth century is a dangerous place. Betrayal, treachery, and a tragic murder have her questioning whether she should remain or try to make her way back to her own time. To make matters worse, tensions escalate when she stumbles across Bonnie Will Foster, the dashing young man in her father’s portrait collection, only to learn he is a dreaded Englishman. But could he be the hero she’s always dreamed him to be? Or will his need for revenge against Ian shatter more than her heart?
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Ride with the Moonlight
After rescuing sixteenth-century Border reiver Will Foster from certain death at her family’s hands, time traveler Maggie Armstrong finally admits her love for the handsome Englishman, though she can’t rid herself of the sinking suspicion that her Scottish kin are not about to let them live in peace. What she doesn’t expect is the danger that lurks on Will’s own side of the Border.
When news of their plans to marry reaches the warden, he charges Will with March treason for trysting with a Scot. Will and Maggie attempt to escape by fleeing to the hills, but when Will is declared an outlaw and allowed to be killed on sight, they can no longer evade the authorities. Will is sentenced to hang, while Maggie is to be sent back to her family.
Heartbroken, she has no choice but to return to Scotland, where her uncle continues to make plans for her to wed Ian Rutherford, the wicked Scotsman who she now realizes murdered her father in cold blood. With Will facing the gallows in England, and herself practically under house arrest in Scotland, she continues to resist her uncle’s plans, but her efforts are thwarted at every turn.
Will’s family, however, is not about to stand by and watch their youngest lad executed simply because he’s lost his heart to a Scottish lass. A daring plan is set into motion, but will it be in time to save Will’s life and reunite the lovers? Or will Ian’s lies prompt Maggie’s family to ensure the bond between them is forever destroyed?
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Shake Loose the Border
With Will and Maggie’s wedding just a week away, the last thing they need to stumble upon is Johnnie Hetherington’s dead body tied to a tree, especially one that’s so close to their cottage. Recognizing it as a sure sign that Johnnie has betrayed the family once too often, Sergeant Richie Carnaby gathers Will and his family together for questioning, though it seems obvious only a fool would kill a man on his own land. Then who did murder the rogue, and why?
Feeling confident it wasn’t any of the Fosters, Richie allows Will and Maggie’s wedding to proceed, but the couple has barely exchanged vows when the Armstrongs attack in force. Geordie is determined to rescue his niece from the clutches of Will Foster, whether she wants to go or not. And if he happens to make her a widow in the process, so be it. Will senses the danger and implores Dylan to get Maggie away to safety, no matter where — or when — that may be.
Though Maggie protests, Will assures her he will follow as soon as he is able. Yet how can that be possible when Dylan whisks her back to the twentieth century? Sharing her fears about Will, and unable to forget his own love, Annie, Dylan attempts to return to the past one last time despite his growing concerns over the disintegrating amulet stone. But will he make it in time to rescue Will, or will the villainous Ian Rutherford, who has already killed in cold blood once, win the ultimate battle and see Will and Maggie separated forever?
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
With Fire and Sword
Will and Maggie are just settling into the twentieth century when a note, discovered hidden in an old diary, turns their new world upside down. The message is from Dylan, and it urges them to return to the past to mend a rent in the fabric of time or risk altering events in both centuries and not for the better. There are only two problems. First, they no longer have any stone left in the amulet, and second, even if they could somehow locate a new stone, what is it they need to change?
Richie Carnaby may have the answer to that question. Though he’s traveled through time himself, there are events from his sixteenth-century past he can’t recall, things that he should be able to. Could his selective amnesia mean that these occurrences remain unsettled, having turned on a course not set by destiny? But even if they are, what are Will and Maggie to do about it?
Back in the sixteenth century, Dylan is facing his own dilemma. Realizing almost at once that the threads of time have snapped and torn the very fabric itself, he is afraid the only way to mend the rent is to summon Will and Maggie back as soon as possible, but how? The stone has surely disintegrated, and even if a bit does remain, he hesitates to ask them to return and put their lives in jeopardy once again. Unless he does, however, the damage will remain undone, setting events on a course that was never meant to be. Can Will and Maggie find their way back to the sixteenth century and repair the tattered fabric, or will the threads of time continue to unravel throughout the centuries, altering history as they know it?
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
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Why I Chose The Anglo-Scottish Borders
The Thunder on the Moor series is a tale of forbidden love and treachery, familial loyalty and betrayal, all set amongst the peel towers and bastle houses of the sixteenth-century Borderlands between England and Scotland. It was the final century of the Border Reiver’s rule over an area that spread over the northernmost counties of England and the southern uplands of Scotland. But what was their story, and how did the period and these rough men catch my interest?
Well, to begin with, Matthews is my pen name. My real surname is Foster, which, as it turns out, was a “right riding name.” Though I’d been researching my husband’s ancestry, I had no idea about the connection the name had to this turbulent time of history. A friend handed me a book one day entitled The Steel Bonnets, by George MacDonald Fraser, and it started a love affair with the period that still remains today. The book is a history of the Border Reivers, and yes, Foster is a reiver name, one which, interestingly enough, is based on both sides of the border.
Now, I just had to find out more, for genealogical reasons if for nothing else, but the more I read, the more I began to weave a story around these rugged rogues in their quilted jacks and steel bonnets. When I first started writing the novel, there wasn’t too much out there about the reivers, but being a librarian, I was determined to discover more. I wrote to Scotland and scoured the bookstores of Northern England when I visited, where, little by little, I was able to come across more on their lives and history, as well as a few records documenting their antics. I even came across an online book about the March Lords, the men who were charged with attempting to control the borders, not an easy undertaking by any means. You see, until the early seventeenth century, the reivers tended to listen to no rule of law save their own surnames, despite numerous attempts by their respective sovereigns.
But let’s go back a bit, to see what created these seemingly rebellious men, who actually had quite a rigid legal system of their own. What is now Northumberland reached well into Scotland back in the fifth century, before England was actually England. As a result, even as the border shifted south, the people residing on either side tended to share the same ancestry, far different from those men who occupied the Highlands of Scotland or the southern counties of England. This was the beginning of the strong sense of family that grew between the inhabitants of Lowland Scotland and Northern England.
Over the centuries, however, things were not peaceful along the Borders. English and Scottish kings constantly waged war against each other, trampling across the lands held by the reivers and shifting the border back and forth, confusing the situation even more. Was it any wonder that the men in these frontier lands would develop into excellent horsemen and soldiers, skilled with sword, bow, and the infamous pike? But while these warriors were highly valued during times of war, they were largely abandoned when peace reigned and left to fend for themselves on lands that had been decimated during countless battles.
And thus was born the Border Reiver, who sought to survive the only way he knew how: through cattle thieving, moonlight forays, and blackmail. In fact, it is from the Anglo-Scottish Borders that the term blackmail first came into being. Whitemail was the payment of lawful rents due to a land owner, while blackmail . . . well, you get the idea. They charged for protection, sometimes from themselves. Another term straight from the reivers vocabulary was being caught with the red-hand. Better known today as caught red-handed, and yes, it meant the same thing as it does today. Many a character in my novel will be caught with the red-hand by the local authorities.
I’ve drifted off the subject though, so back to the Border Reivers. English reivers didn’t only steal from the Scots, however, or vice versa. They also relieved their own countrymen of their goods, because, as I mentioned above, loyalty to surname was much more important than fidelity to either country. That meant, for example, that the Scottish Fosters were more likely to stand with their English kin before riding with their own countryman, should the situation arise.
But despite their drifting over to the wrong side of the law now and then, honor was important to the reiver. Once their word was given, it was kept. And woe to any man who betrayed his surname. They were dealt with swiftly and without mercy. I decided to weave this quality into the story. A man’s word was his honor, his fidelity to his kin first and foremost, so when one member of a related surname betrays my hero and heroine, I used the occasion to give an example of what might have happened to such a man.
Of course, not all reivers followed this code of honor. Even kings were known to break their word, as in the case of King James, who lured Johnnie of Gilnockie into a meeting under false pretenses. But once again, I’ve drifted off the subject. My villain is one of those who sees no value in the truth and twists it to his own advantage. Will he get his comeuppance? I’m afraid you’ll have to read the series to find that out. I don’t want to give too much away.
The distant kings who ruled over the Borders, both English and Scottish, were not always happy with the reivers’ independence and flagrant disregard of their laws. And so, the March Laws were created in an attempt to keep these unruly men under control. One way they thought to do this was to enact a law forbidding the Scots and English from interacting, thus eliminating the possibility of their own subjects siding against them, or so they thought. In reality, few reivers paid them much mind and interacted with whoever they pleased, even to the point of marrying readily across the border. Of course, some paid the price for this blatant disobedience. These March Laws made a perfect source of conflict for my hero and heroine.
Lest you think reivers were all from the lower classes, however, I must note that many a reiver was a gentleman. In fact, they came from every level of society. One notorious reiver was Sir John Forster – no relation - Warden of the English Middle March in the latter half of the sixteenth century, who, though an official of the king, was more likely to look the other way when his family was riding. On the Scottish side, Sir John Maxwell was known to have one heck of a blood feud going with the Johnstones in the early part of the sixteenth century. These blood feuds could go on for years, and I was able to incorporate this notion into in my novel, as well, thus laying the basis for the forbidden love affair.
I wanted a twist, though, something to add another layer of conflict that would keep my main characters’ love at risk over the entirety of the series. Time travel was the answer, though twentieth-century Maggie doesn’t return to the past alone, but with her sixteenth-century father, who has been stranded in the twentieth-century for twenty-five years. Maggie has listened to the tales of moonlight forays and blood feuds her entire life. She’s even poured over the portraits her father has collected, including one of an extremely attractive young man who turns up later, so when she returns to the past, much of it is familiar to her. Of course, she doesn’t lose that touch of twentieth-century feminism, which also contributes to the plot.
By incorporating things like the March laws, blood feuds, and deadly forays into the story, I hoped to transport the reader back to the days of the Border Reiver, much as my heroine was. Though I did try to give an accurate account of what the border life was like in 1538, the passage of centuries has no doubt softened their exploits, romanticizing what was likely a harsh time in history, but that is what happens when history is viewed through a lens of time and distance. Even Sir Walter Scott, himself a descendant of a Border Reiver family, saw the romantic side. I like to think there were good men then too, men like my hero, who would have swept my heroine off her feet and rescued her from a fate worse than death. And this is, after all, a romance.
Have I traced my husband’s family back to these sixteenth-century reivers? Not yet, but I have discovered ancestors on both sides of the border and uncovered another reiver name or two, so chances are there’s at least one mixed in there somewhere. I’ll be sorely disappointed if there isn’t.
If you’d like to know more about the Border Reivers and the times in which they lived, you can check out my website at www.andrea-matthews.com.
If this fascinating summary of Scots-English border affairs has made you curious, then have a look at our enticing excerpt below!
Her alluring Englishman clamored up the wooden steps of the peel, stopping for a moment to look in her direction and flash a smile.
“Give us a hand here, Will,” a voice yelled out, and the rogue gave a slight bow before hastening back down the steps to his comrades below.
Maggie gasped and pulled back just in time to see her Uncle Sim scramble down the steps from the roof.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“They’ve pushed their way in,” Maggie said, not wanting to mention Donald’s mistake.
He let out a colorful expletive on his way passed but stopped for a moment to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Dinna fash yerself, lassie. We’ve a surprise waiting for them.”
The image of the handsome Englishman flashed through her mind, and she scanned the steps below. For some unknown reason, she whispered a prayer, the lump in her throat disappearing when she spied him back in the yard. Will, someone had called him. She whispered his name and a warmth embraced her like a soft woolen blanket, but a sudden shriek from the outside steps yanked her back to reality. A chill coursed through her veins, causing her to shudder. Sim’s surprise, no doubt.
Foster men clambered up the outside steps while Armstrong men tried to down them from the tower wall. Maggie pulled her cousin aside. “You remember the English lad I came across the night Alasdair and I slipped away? Well, he’s out there. But I don’t think he’ll harm us. He never even tried to steal a kiss.”
Constance scoffed. “I reckon no’, with the woods full of Armstrongs and outlaws on his heels. Ye can thank the Holy Mother yer da came when he did, though. ’Twas Will Foster from what I can gather, and he’s sure to have taken ye right then and there if he’d half a chance.”
Maggie scowled, but perhaps Connie was right. They had been a bit preoccupied. And yet he’d seemed decent enough at the time. Would he really have killed Alasdair and ravaged her if her father hadn’t come along?
A cheer of triumph rose up the stairwell, followed by the blood chilling clang of steel against steel. The Fosters had fought their way to the turnpike steps and would soon be working their way up the floors. In a desperate attempt to help, Maggie ran to the fireplace and shoveled the embers into a nearby bucket. With a bit of effort, she raised it to one of the fourth-story windows and emptied its contents out on those below, cringing when one of the men screamed in anguish and an arrow pierced her bucket.
A strong arm yanked her back against the wall. “Get away from there, Maggie!” Robert’s voice echoed off the walls, his forehead creased with concern. “Now go tend to yer cousin’s wounds afore a Foster arrow feathers itself in yer breast as well.”
Maggie blinked in surprise but headed across the room, too stunned by her close call to protest. Once she tended to Donald’s wound, though, she inched her way back to her father’s side. His muscular hands launched arrow after arrow into the enemy below, and Maggie watched in awe. When did he learn to do that? Oh, from time to time he’d gone hunting with friends, but he’d never brought anything home. She’d always assumed he wasn’t any good, but when one of the Fosters fell, pierced by his shot, she realized how naïve she’d been.
“Maggie!” Her father lifted an eyebrow in her direction.
“Sorry, Da.” She kissed him on the forehead, causing the corner of his mouth to twerk.
“Go on and see to Donald, aye.”
“But I’ve already bandaged his arm.”
“’Tis the wound to his pride what needs a gentle touch, lass.”
A pang of sympathy for the disheartened youth convinced Maggie to move back to his side, but she hadn’t been there long when the smell of smoke began to fill the room. Once more, Maggie pulled herself up, this time peeking through the narrow arrow slot beneath Ian’s arm.
“Oh my God!” She gasped at the sight she beheld.
The weary reiver stopped for a minute to rest his elbow against the cold stone. “’Twill be all right, Maggie,” Ian assured her, but somehow she found it hard to believe.
Smoke was rising from three small outbuildings, their thatched roofs smoldering in the fading light. The scent of seared wood permeated the air, mingled with the tang of sweat and blood. It clung to the men who forced their way through the peel door, wild and full of anger; on the cattle that gathered within the small courtyard, emitting restless bellows; even on the women who helped tend the wounds of their loved ones.
Maggie’s heart filled with terror. What if the Fosters succeeded in storming the tower? With her nerves strung as taut as her father’s bow, she reached for the axe Constance had given her. They didn’t tend to kill the women, or so she’d been told, but were they to endure a fate far worse? The image of clammy English fingers fondling her most private parts nauseated her, and she glanced out the window, hoping to see her kin driving the wretched bastards back. Instead, she caught sight of her uncle’s smoldering cottage and clutched her weapon all the tighter, determined to put up a valiant fight.
Not a moment later, the clash of metal echoed off the walls and boots sounded on the turnpike steps. Armstrongs ran from every direction to meet their assailants. Oddly enough, Maggie could think of only one thing. The ring her grandmother had given her was in that smoking cottage . . . and so was the amulet!
Andrea Matthews
Andrea Matthews is the pseudonym for Inez Foster, a historian and librarian who loves to read and write and search around for her roots, genealogical speaking. She has a BA in History and an MLS in Library Science, and enjoys the research almost as much as she does writing the story. In fact, many of her ideas come to her while doing casual research or digging into her family history.
She is the author of the Thunder on the Moor series set on the 16th century Anglo-Scottish Border, and the Cross of Ciaran series, where a fifteen hundred year old Celt finds himself in the twentieth century.
Andrea also writes historical mysteries under the pen name I. M. Foster. Her series A South Shore Mystery is set in the early 1900s on Long Island.
Andrea is a member of the Long Island Romance Writers, and the Historical Novel Society.
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