Dear Reader, Almost Innocent is a romance that is particularly dear to me, with a heroine who surprised me with her strength and resourcefulness, and a hero who will always be one of my favorites. Growing up behind the impenetrable walls of an English fortress, young Magdalen does not know that she is the illegitimate daughter of a powerful English prince and his murdered French mistress -- or that she has been a pawn in the struggle between England and France ever since she slipped from her dying mother's womb. All she knows is that she longs for excitement. And then one day, as if in answer to her prayers, the splendid figure of Guy de Gervais, a true knight in shining armor, rides into her cloistered world and spirits her away. For Magdalen it is love at first sight. The one and only love of her life. Yet Guy sees only his responsibility to keep Magdalen safe until she can be wed to his nephew and thus fulfill her political destiny. Then duty calls Guy to the bloody battlefields of France, and when he returns, time has transformed Magdalen into a stunningly sensual beauty. Suddenly the noble knight is fighting the fiercest battle of his life: against a searing desire for a woman he cannot have. I hope that you will be thrilled by Magdalen and Guy's passionate love story, and that you will have as much pleasure reading it as I had writing it. Warmest wishes, Jane Feather P.S. Don't miss my latest novel, The Widow's Kiss , featuring an enchantress who has been widowed no less than four times ... and the formidable hero who finds himself reluctantly falling under her spell.