She, a MacDonald, love a Campbell?

Edward Campbell had a totally unjustified reason for despising Fiona MacDonald, but she was certainly not going to explain her actions to a "stuffy colonial" she'd never see again!

Unfortunately, Fiona did meet him again--as the uncle of her four young charges on a remote New Zealand sheep station. And it seemed the ancient feud between the clans was being revived.

Too late then to wish they'd started out differently . . ( )

The Flowering December is another take on the Horrible First Impressions trope that Essie Summers loved to write. Fiona's fiance arrives back in Edinburgh, from Africa, just a few days before the wedding... and tells her that he has married her best friend that very morning. In utter shock, Fiona is persuaded by a girlfriend to go out for a hectic night on the town... and is rescued from a drunken swain by a very disapproving and overbearing man. Who turns out, when Fiona decides to escape her memories by taking a position as an up-country governess in New Zealand, to be her employer. Eliot Campbell spends most of the book looking askance upon a young woman whom he is quite sure is no fit person to be in the care of children, except of course that there are no nightclubs and Bright Young Things in the back of beyond, and perhaps beyond the reach of temptation she'll really be all right. Especially since he really hasn't the time to start advertising and interviewing all over again. A pleasant story with lots of New Zealand flavour. ( )