Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress

By Nicola Cornick

Book Overview

If I accept his offer to be his mistress, I could have the finest silks, the best carriage and be transformed from ugly duckling to a pampered, pretty swan And although I would feel a virtuous pride in turning down the wicked rake, I also have an unmaidenly interest in exactly what the role would entail.... Catriona is doing her best to resist the skillful seduction of the scandalous heir to the Earl of Strathconan. But kidnapped and shipwrecked with only this rake as company, her adventure has just begun....

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373295359
• ISBN13: 9780373295357
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Gender-reversed homage to Stevenson's Classic

Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped (Penguin Classics)" was one of my favourite stories as a boy: this tale of high adventure and the sequel, "Catriona" are two of his best-loved tales. The author also loved Stevenson's book and she wrote this one as, in her words, "a homage to both Robert Louis Stevenson's wonderful story and to Scotland, one of the most beautiful countries on Earth." Stevenson's classic begins in Summer 1751 as young David Balfour leaves the home where he grew up, following the death of his parents. Nicola Cornick's book begins in Summer 1802 as young Catriona Balfour buries her father and prepares likewise to leave her own childhood home. This book is more of a romance than an adventure story, but many of the most enjoyable scenes in the original book, from the siege of the roundhouse to the wreck of the Cormorant, find an echo in Nicola Cornick's book. The development of the story, characters, romantic tension and the depiction of the beauty of Scotland are alike well done: the historial era in which the story is set, fifty one years later, is of course a little different. Instead of the aftermath of the '45 rebellion, Nicola Cornick's hero and heroine are living through the brief Peace of Amiens which punctuated the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Mostly this period is well described, but there is just one gigantic clanger. The hero is given the rank of lieutenant commander which was not introduced into the Royal Navy until a hundred and eleven years later. (The rank was first adopted by the U.S. Navy in 1862, and the RN followed in 1914.) This mistake aside, it is an enjoyable, well written romance. But if you do enjoy it, try Stevenson's original, which is a work of genius.