She moves into a castle in Scotland that a relative left to her (so she and her future husband could be close to his home of course) and starts a career illustrating scientific journals. She goes into mourning and tells her family she’s too distraught to ever enter a courtship again. Maddie’s true passion is drawing, specifically illustrating specimens found in nature, and one of my favorite letters ends with “Here, have a drawing of a snail.”Įventually Maddie has to resolve her romance with the fake Captain MacKenzie so she kills him off. The letters function more as a diary then anything allowing Maddie to share her personal thoughts with her fictional suitor. In order to sell the ruse, Maddie writes to her dear Captain MacKenzie and throws her letters in the post fully expecting them to wind up in a dead letters office (Hey! It’s Bartleby the Scrivener!).
Thus the myth of Captain Logan MacKenzie is born. In a poorly thought out plan to avoid her season, Madeline pretends to have met a handsome soldier while her father was on his honeymoon with her new stepmother, and tells everyone she’s already engaged. As a result, the thought of facing her first season in London is unbearable to her. and ready to make good on every promise Maddie never expected to keep.Madeline Gracechurch, our heroine, is a shy young woman who suffers from social anxiety. He's wounded, jaded, in possession of her letters. The real Captain Logan MacKenzie arrives-handsome as anything, but not entirely honorable. Until years later, when this kilted Highland lover of her imaginings shows up in the flesh. and by pretending to be devastated when he was (not really) killed in battle, she managed to avoid the pressures of London society entirely.
Maddie poured her heart into writing the imaginary Captain MacKenzie. Certain to be a failure on the marriage mart, Maddie did what generations of shy, awkward young ladies have done: she invented a sweetheart.Ī Scottish sweetheart who was handsome, honorable, and de-voted to her, but conveniently never around.
On the cusp of her first London season, Miss Madeline Gracechurch was shy, pretty, and talented with a drawing pencil, but hopelessly awkward with gentlemen.
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