Island of the Swans

What a great book this was. I never expected such meat from a romance novel, but I was enthralled with the tale. From start to finish you get a real feeling of real people. The heroine, Jane, is flawed, not perfect like most cookie-cutter romance novel heroines. I liked the ending. It was enough to know for me that they found each other. As I read the pages of Island of the Swans, I was reminded of Wuthering Heights and Diana Gabaldon's Dragonfly in Amber, as well as the triangle between Rhett, Scarlet & Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind. But Jane is much more a woman of honor than Scarlet O'Hara ever was, and Thomas Fraser more of a man than Ashley Wilkes. Although Thomas Fraser is not quite as dramatic a love interest as Healthcliff, he is sweeter and definitely manly. I will being running out to get more Ciji Ware novels! I stayed up well into the night to read the ending of this one and I haven't done that in a LONG time. Well done Ms. Ware!

I've only just stumbled onto Ciji Ware's work and after reading this book, went straight out to get her other titles. She is one great storyteller. It's obvious a lot of work goes into her novels, with amazing amounts of research, so that you get a great feel of what it was like in the past. And the heroine's life path in Island of The Swans makes me think about my life and what I want from it. In Ware's other works, she juxtaposes past and present excitingly. I really look forward to more of her stories.

I took away from this a "real life" feeling. Not a book for those that crave endings that are manufactured and "cheerfully tie up all lose ends". This one leaves us with "just enough"happening to remain a believer, and makes me feel like happiness may be about making the most of the opportunities one is handed in life...some never seen to completion, some ongoing forever, all poignant choices. If you liked this one, A Cottage by the Sea is a must read just for the surprise near the ending about these characters and their fates!

I am a latecomer to the novels of Ciji Ware, but very impressed with her ability to richly depict characters and places. I have personally visited the Island of the Swans, and thoroughly hiked in the area in which her book is set. Ms. Ware has a historian's love of accuracy, and her descriptions of Struy, Loch an Eilean, the River Spey, Culloden House (where I have sojourned many times), etc. are absolutely perfect. I was transported, once again to that delightful corner of the world.

I picked up this book never expecting it to be such an entriging love story. However, when I got into it, I could not put it down. I have never been interested in the British perspective on the American Revoltution, but the story of Jane Maxwell, Thomas Fraser and the Duke of Gordon was gripping. My fasination with this story is sorting out what was real and what was fiction. I have tried, rather successfully to research Alexander, the 4th Duke of Gordon. I was able to pinpoint several facts in history, but haven't been too successful with the characters. Does anyone know? The author details in the back of the book her exhaustive search for her Scottish linage to Jane Maxwell, but I was just curious how much was true. Great book, I loved it and will probably reread it again.