""The Life and Loves of Gavin MacLeod""

Angus and Gavin MacLeod, fraternal twins, are in the trenches during World War I. It is 1917 and Flora is left at home in Scotland worrying about her good friend, Angus, and her fiancé, Gavin. She signs up to become a nurse's aid and goes to the front. When she finds Angus shell shocked, he tells her that Gavin has been killed. Flora is heartbroken little knowing that Gavin has been found and is in a hospital in Germany.

Gavin continually puts off letting his family know that he is alive and well. He is angry and upset that his twin left him to die and when he discovers that Angus has married his fiancé, he vows revenge. He goes to America and assumes a new identity. He has an opportunity to learn the porcelain trade and becomes a wealthy and influential man.

In the 1930's, Gavin is living in France seeing the rise of Hitler to power. He helps in the war effort. When he sees Flora after so many years, he falls in love with her all over again and she with him. She does not recognize him. Flora must make a choice between her husband Angus and the man she loves.

The Stolen Years is mostly about Gavin's life and the choices that he makes. The book spans almost a century of him and his family members. I enjoyed the book but found it difficult to believe that no one recognized Gavin. I don't believe we change that much that our families would not recognize us as we age. This was not a happy, easy- going book. Gavin's foolish choices create a lot of unhappiness. THE STOLEN YEARS is more of a mainstream novel than a happy-ever-after romance. The secondary characters are well drawn even though they do not always act as the reader would like. It is well written and moves along at an excellent pace. I will be looking for more books by Fiona Hood-Stewart.

Reviewed by Marilyn Heyman
Posted November 9, 2001

Summary

Spanning three generations and a century of love, loss, and longing, The Stolen Years is a stunning tale of secrets and betrayals, of an empire forged from the seeds of revenge . . . and the legacy that withstood it all.

On the battlefields of World War I, twin brothers Gavin and Angus MacLeod are torn apart in one horrific instant that changes their lives forever. Believing his brother dead, a shattered, tormented Angus returns home to Scotland and takes his place as heir to the family title and husband to his brother's fiancee.

But Gavin has survived. Believing he was betrayed by his twin, he creates a new identity for himself in America. And as he helms an elite china empire through decades of war and turbulence, peace and prosperity, he nurses a bitter obsession for revenge.

Fate and one remarkable woman will unite the brothers' lives in astonishing unforseen ways. Yet the children of these men will bear the sins of their fathers. And as the twenty-first century dawns, the secrets that have shaped their destinies will finally be revealed.