Highland Brides & Tribes: The Highland Brides

By Tanya Anne Crosby

A Reader's Companion to the Highland Worlds of Tanya Anne Crosby. This is not a novel, nor a short story. 

HIGHLAND BRIDES & TRIBES is an updated version of TRIBES. It catalogs the most notable members of the seven noble houses in Tanya Anne Crosby's Highlander books, all pledged to honor blood before land and land before king. The families making up this alliance include the MacKinnons, the Brodies, the MacLeans, the dún Scoti, the MacEanraigs, the Steorling/McNaughts and the Montgomeries.

Spanning two series, THE HIGHLAND BRIDES and GUARDIANS OF THE STONE and a third yet to come, this reader's guide provides insight into the characters. It includes family trees, character profiles, signed character artwork, plus hints at future works and more.

Included you'll find:

• Character profiles for the leading characters of seven books, delineating how they are connected
• Family trees
• Select artwork, digitally signed
• Inside scoop from the author as relates to the creation of her novels
• Hints at future novels, plus a chance to give the author feedback
• Asides from the author about various historical elements included in her stories
• Extensive Glossary, including Gaelic and medieval words and phrases used in the novels
• Complete Series Bibliography 

Warning. Spoilers may be included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books
• Release date: Jul 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536592344

Tanya Anne Crosby

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Tanya Anne Crosby has been featured in People, USA Today, Romantic Times and Publisher’s Weekly, and her books have been translated into eight languages. The author of 30 novels, including mainstream fiction, contemporary suspense and historical romance, her first novel was published in 1992 by Avon Books, where she was hailed as “one of Avon’s fastest rising stars” and her fourth book was chosen to launch the company’s Avon Romantic Treasure imprint.

Book preview

Part 1

The MacKinnons

Where else should we begin but the beginning?

When I first envisioned Iain MacKinnon, he asserted himself to me as a leader among men. Tall, handsome, dutiful and loyal to a fault, he was a man whose lineage hailed back to the first kings of Scotland. I envisioned him with dark hair, prematurely gray, presumably from the incredible burden he shouldered as leader of his clan, but then I gave him even greater burdens to carry.

Unbeknownst to Iain, his father (unnamed throughout the books) lost the heart of his wife to Dougal MacLean. Old MacKinnon's wife, who was also never named, gives birth to a child and subsequently dies during childbirth.

For the entirety of Iain’s life he mistakenly believes the child she gave birth to upon her deathbed was himself. What we don’t learn until later in The MacKinnon’s Bride is that it wasn’t Iain; it was Lagan. Neither Lagan nor Iain realize until it’s too late that they are half brothers.

But although Lagan and Iain share the same mother, Lagan’s father is actually Dougal MacLean, which is a perfectly good reason for the MacLean not to wish to allow his youngest daughter to wed her own brother. Alas, however, as with most feuds, these are secrets that, had they come to light earlier, may have resulted in, if not a truce for the MacLeans and the MacKinnons, but at least a better understanding of the reasons behind the actions of those with the power to shape the lives of their clans.

Incidentally, as I said in the foreword, Dougal is dead in The MacKinnon’s Bride—his life lost to auld MacKinnon in a battle of honor—and then suddenly he’s alive in Lyon’s Gift, and literally no one caught this. Not my editors at Avon Books, not the dozen line editors and proofers that came after. And certainly not me.

Getting back to Iain ... so he weds MacLean’s eldest daughter Mairi, hoping for an end to the MacKinnon-MacLean feud, but Mairi, alas, imbued with hatred for the man who killed her father (ha!), leaps to her death from a tower window at Chreagach Mhor, leaving Iain with an infant son and a mountain of guilt as massive as the cliffs upon which his ancient castle is seated.

Incidentally, although I use castles throughout this series, A.D. 1124 is quite early yet for castles in the Highland region, or even in Scotland. However, because THE HIGHLAND BRIDES series is more accurately classified as a period drama (usually used in the context of film and television, the term period drama is a work set in, or reminiscent of, an earlier time period), not so much historical fiction, I took some liberties. In fact, the kilt as we know it is also not traceable to this era, nor is whisky, for that matter, and neither is the word Sassenach, which doesn’t appear in written language until the 18th Century. However, I believe all things must exist in some form for some time before they appear in written word, since the necessity for a name arises only from a need to express what something is to the public at large. Therefore, even if a recipe for whisky isn’t recorded until the 15th Century, I’m pretty sure people were busy perfecting recipes and inventing stills much earlier (see A Word About ... Whisky for more information).

As for castles, this is fairly cut and dried. There are no existing castles as we know them today in Scotland dating from this period. On the other hand, stone structures did exist and complicated dwellings and fortresses were introduced into the area by the Romans, which of course predates the era in which my books are set. Additionally, some structures predate even the Romans, such as the cairns, brochs and standing stones that pepper the Scot’s landscape. Still I took care not to, for example, make my towers round (an architectural improvement introduced by William Marshall; see A Word About ... Castles).

In the end, whose to say how long a whisky recipe has been in existence or how a particular clan might have dressed or what color they wove their cloth. But these are the questions that fuel a writer’s imagination.

For example, at the time Iain meets Page, who is to say what his clan wore, since the facts are sketchy even for historians? Still, I was careful to call Iain’s tartan a breacan, not a kilt, because the official great kilt is a garment that doesn’t appear until much, much later in Scottish history (See A Word about ... Kilts).

However, the one thing I felt certain hasn’t changed much, probably since the dawn of mankind, is the desire to love and to be loved in return and it is this overarching theme that has guided me throughout each of THE HIGHLAND BRIDES books, and in fact, through all my books.

MacKinnon Family Tree

To me, love is the bravest, most compelling theme to write about, and to this day I cringe when the words bodice ripper are used, particularly by other authors in reference to romances, not only because it demoralizes the subject of love, but because it minimizes the importance of romantic relationships, which I whole-heartedly believe are central to our humanity. But, in fact, I began writing these books immediately following an era that saw books written by women for women labeled as bodice rippers. While a small handful of books might fit that term, the vast majority did and do not. In fact, through more than twenty historical books, I never ripped a bodice, not once, not under the guise of intimacy. It seems to me that love, where it extends to relationships, is one of those uncomfortable topics that it’s easier for some to titter about than it is to face honestly and