Within the veil - Brandy Vallance ~Review in English~

Within the veil by Brandy Vallance 

Blurb:

They never should have met. But they might be made for each other.
Feya Broon, a Scottish half Gypsy, knows what it is to go hungry. Trapped in the Edinburgh tenements with a father lost to his past and only the faded memory of her mother’s faith, Feya is desperate to provide for her siblings. When an ill-conceived plan leads to thievery, she finds herself in the last place she’d ever want to be–captured by an English palace guard. But there’s something about this man that tears at every preconceived notion she’s ever had.
Alasdair Cairncross never dreamed he’d be forced to transport a Gypsy woman halfway across the wilds of Scotland. The timing is disastrous, considering his fiancée’s imminent arrival and his father’s political goals. Not only that, but the fiery young woman threatens to lay bare secrets Alasdair would rather keep hidden. And the farther they travel together, the more conflicted he finds himself with duty–both to the crown and to the plans his family has for him.
As their walls begin to crumble, Feya and Alasdair must fight to survive a decades-old feud, a Highland kidnapping, and the awakening of their own hearts.


This book really surprised me. I was a bit reluctant to read it at first because of the Christian part. I am a Christian but sometimes books with that kind of stories are too "educational" for my taste and the story suffers due to that. This is definitely not the case in this book.

Within the veil is different and it made me think about many things that are not often thematized in books, especially in historical romances. It made me curious and made me look up other things about the gypsies and their treatment in Great Britain in those times, it made me look up phenomenons like synesthesia - and it made me feel and fear with the hero and heroine of the book.

It's never been easy to be different no matter if you can see the veils or you're a gypsy or have just some gypsy blood in your veins. Being poor has never been easy either so when our heroine, Feya who is poor and part gypsy desperately needs money to provide for her siblings, she makes a mistake. A pretty bad one that sees her end up in prison and by some twist of fate on the road to said prison with Alasdair, a young noble who has some demons of his own to fight.
Travelling together it's not just demons that he has to fight anymore but also this stupid thing called attraction. He, the son of Edan Cairncross, the man who hates gypsies almost above all else, feels attracted to someone like Feya?

Well, as it is a romance we might deduce that there'll be a happy ending but the author doesn't make it easy for her characters.
It is an interesting, well written story, not only a wonderful romance but also a story that highlights some aspects of the history of the gypsies in Scotland in the Victorian era. I like books that don't just tell the usual stories but tell about things that are easily forgotten nowadays.
I really liked this book and will definitely read it again.

★★★★