THE HIGHWAYMAN Anne Kelleher Jove Romance - Irish Eyes series August 2001 ISBN# 0-515-13114-8 {Click here to buy this book} Neville Fitzgerald, Lord of Clonmore, has returned to Ireland to claim his title but he didn't expect that his belated and estranged

However, the law is on Gentleman Niall's heels and he decides that one last haul is needed and then he'll stop, but to make the plan come together he needs the land that borders his own as it will allow him to travel more freely. So Neville attends a local social gathering and engages the landowner, Sir Oliver of Kilmara, in a game of cards. Ironically, Neville wins the hand and the land, but doesn't count on a wife coming with the deal!

Elizabeth Wentworth, only daughter to Sir Oliver, is horrified to learn that her shiftless father has gambled her heritage away in a game of cards, but more horrified to learn that she is part of the deal. After a long trip from England to Ireland and an even longer carriage ride to Kilmara, the traveling coach is held up by highwaymen. These men are ruffians, not at all the sort that she'd heard about in Gentleman Niall. In fact, it's Gentleman Niall who comes to her rescue when she's brutally kidnapped by the other gang. Elizabeth is shocked to find on her wedding day that the man she about to marry is Gentleman Niall! She's also shocked to find that Neville also wears a mask by day because of a childhood injury that left him dreadfully scarred.

Elizabeth appeals to Neville to give up his escapades and try to have a normal marriage but he shuns her, on her wedding day, and takes himself off to Clonmore Castle to live by himself. Elizabeth is left alone with Kilmara and mixed feelings over how she should feel about her marriage and what would happen to her if it ever got out that her husband was Gentleman Niall. It's in John Harrington that she finds an ally. With the exception of the hold up of her carriage and her wedding day she never sees her husband. All dealings between the couple are done via Harrington. But when Neville is shot trying to rescue the son of a local landowner that Elizabeth finds herself sending untold amounts of time wither husband, and builds the foundation of a marital relationship with him. But will Neville stop his nighttime hold ups before he gets himself killed?

Sir Anthony Adamms is the man the local magistrate has engaged to flush out Gentleman Niall. It doesn't take him long to discover who it is. It's getting the locals to believe him that's another story.

What I dislike about books is when you can figure everything out within the first chapter or two. Such was the case with this book, and why I feel comfortable revealing whom Gentleman Niall really is. It's because the author tells us in the first page so there's no surprise there! This is an indication of how the rest of the book would go. In a word, it was predictable.

One thing that surprised me was that this story was about Neville and Elizabeth and not John Harrington and Elizabeth because he seemed to be the central male character through about 2/3's of the story. Indeed, I got to page 150 of this 260 page book and Neville and Elizabeth had only been in the company of each other about 3 times, and one of them was during her rescue at the hold up on the way to Kilmara. And with the exception of a couple romantic interludes, the couple doesn't spend much time with each other to learning more about the person they married. As a matter of fact, never once did either say they loved the other, which I found completely surprising.

Characters in general were not well fleshed out. I found Neville to be the antithesis of what I was expecting this romance hero to be. He was continually brooding, seemed tied to his mother's apron strings and always sought out the advice of Harrington for even simple matters. Elizabeth remained a self-centered immature girl instead of the very adult and aware woman she was meant to portray. Many times she remembered the starving families living under the hedges around her own estate saying what a shame it was they lived in squalor but did nothing to help. Her greatest effort towards the Irish was to send medicine to one of the distant villages, which she had mixed herself like a well-schooled herb wife of Medieval times.

Harrington's character seemed to be the best developed, but that's probably because he was the leading male role through the story. He was the image of a romance hero…strong yet gentle, charismatic yet honorable, determined yet able to bend to suit each situation… His heroine would be the Irish serving girl Sorcha though their relationship is only alluded to through the story until the end.

And Sir Anthony's character seemed to me to be a mirror image of Police Inspector Javert from Les Miserable! It was as if Anthony's character had been drawn exactly from this other character, which also left nothing to the imagination and lent a stronger feeling of disappointment in a story that began with so much potential.