The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne (audiobook) – Narrated by Derek Perkins

Dorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More, is a ruthless villain. Scarred and hard-hearted, Dorian is one of Victorian London’s wealthiest, most influential men who will stop at nothing to wreak vengeance on those who’ve wronged him… and will fight to the death to seize what he wants. The lovely, still innocent widow Farah Leigh Mackenzie is no exception-and soon Dorian whisks the beautiful lass away to his sanctuary in the wild Highlands…. But Farah is no one’s puppet. She possesses a powerful secret-one that threatens her very life. When being held captive by Dorian proves to be the only way to keep Farah safe from those who would see her dead, Dorian makes Farah a scandalous proposition: marry him for protection in exchange for using her secret to help him exact revenge on his enemies. But what the Blackheart of Ben More never could have imagined is that Farah has terms of her own, igniting a tempestuous desire that consumes them both. Could it be that the woman he captured is the only one who can touch the black heart he’d long thought dead?

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Rating: B+ for narration; B+ for content

The first in a new series of historical romances set in the Victorian era, The Highwayman is a darkly intense story that has a real “old-skool” feel about it. It’s angsty and perhaps a bit melodramatic at times, but I don’t mind that when the story is as gripping and the romance as deeply-felt as is the case here.

The story opens in the Scottish Highlands in 1855, when eleven-year-old Dougan Mackenzie is nursing wounds from yet another beating received at the hands of one of the sisters at the orphanage where he’s lived most of his life. He is found by a girl he has not seen before, a girl with silvery ringlets and grey eyes who refuses to leave him alone and then binds his damaged palm, introducing herself as Farah Leigh – and showing him the only affection he has ever known.

You can read the rest of this review at AudioGals.