The Golden Rose By Marisa Dillon

Series: The Ladies of Lore Series
on November 22, 2017
Pages: 312
Goodreads

When poisonings are an everyday occurrence, healer Rosalyn Macpherson must be ready with an antidote. Unless it’s for the English Lord who means to claim her clan’s Highland castle.

What’s in a name? Everything, for Lord Lachlan de Leverton, a charismatic English aristocrat. He’ll break the law to sever his ties to his notorious family. But first, he must secure the deed to Fyvie Castle before the feisty Scottish lass wins it.

Because of their conflicting claims, Rosalyn and Lachlan are ordered to appear in Edinburgh’s royal court, and in an unusual twist of fate, they are assigned as guardians, rather than prisoners, to a caravan carrying the Golden Rose, a papal gift for the King of Scots.

When the royal decree becomes a forced union between the two, it’s not the remedy Rosalyn had hoped for, but by now she doesn’t hate this Englishman quite as much.

Before the knot is tied, the Rose is stolen and Lachlan’s suspected of the crime. Rosalyn then faces the hardest decision yet. Must she sacrifice her precious Philosophers Stone or the land she loves, or both, to save him?

The Golden Rose of Scotland is book two in The Ladies of Lore Series by Marisa Dillon. I wish I could give this book more than three stars. But I feel that the number of editing errors alone bring it down a star, and then the confusing plot brings it down another star. I felt confused in the beginning as to why Rosalyn is imprisoned for trying to stake a claim to property. The whole prison scene is muddled. One sentence makes it sound like she is tied to a pole with three people but there is only one other person present – Lachlan. In another scene, Rosalyn is getting her hair fixed with “stings of amethysts..” instead of strings of amethysts. I always enjoy real historic figures being woven into stories and Dillon does that here with the entrance of the Bishop of Imola, Giacomo Passarelli. She also uses an actual artifact of the Catholic church called The Golden Rose. The theme of mistaken identity between the twins Ethan and Lachlan gets confusing. There are moments when the point of view in the story changes as well. Overall, this book was okay. I really liked the Bishop’s character. He brings a fatherly love to the story. But too many editing problems and plot confusions for me to give more than two flowers.