INTRIGUE. TENSION. LOVE AFFAIRS: In The Historical Romance series, a set of stand-alone novels, Vivian Stuart builds her compelling narratives around the dramatic lives of sea captains, nurses, surgeons, and members of the aristocracy. Stuart takes us back to the societies of the 20th century, drawing on her own experience of places across Australia, India, East Asia, and the Middle East. Somerled Sinclair returned after five years to his Scottish castle home to find it shrouded in mist — a mist symbolical of the doubts and difficulties surrounding it. Everything, he found, was changed — his mother shocked by the loss of her husband; his brother Torquil — Lord Ardlair — burdened by the desperate struggle to save the estate; old servants pensioned off; and a certain Miss Alison Graham very much in charge. There was a possible solution in Jennifer Oakroyd, whose millionaire father was determined that she should become Lady Ardlair. But Somerled's initial dislike and suspicion of Alison increased when she informed him that she herself was engaged to Torquil, and had no intention of giving him up. The Sinclair’s problems were overwhelming, but in this story they are at last dispelled, to leave a picture of life in the Highlands most satisfying to anyone who, like the author, knows and loves them. Vivian Stuart was a British writer and during her writing career she had more than 70 books published in Australia, USA and the UK. Born in Berkshire in England, she spent most of her youth in Burma and India, and later lived in Hungary and Australia. At the age of thirty-five she began to write romantic fiction but soon devoted her attention to military and historical novels.