The STOLEN YEARS
a novel by Fiona Hood-Stewart

An excerpt...

"Angus," she gasped in amazement. "Is it really you?" Tears burst forth as she threw her arms around the stiff, motionless figure. Then, leaning back and holding his hands, she realized that his eyes were devoid of expression. "Angus." She shook him anxiously. "Angus, it's me, Flo. Say something, please." She shook him again gently. Then another thought occurred. Gavin. Where was Gavin? She glanced around, as though expecting to see him among the group of men smoking and playing cards. Then she squeezed Angus's hand once more.

"Angus, you're all right now. You're with me." His eyes flickered and her heart leapt. "Oh, Angus, darling, please. Please come back. Please tell me where Gavin is," she whispered, almost to herself.

"Dead." The voice was flat.

She stared at him, the shook her head. "No. It can't be. No." She shook her head again, her hands gripping his sleeve savagely. "Not Gavin." She began shaking, then laughed hysterically. "People like Gavin don't get killed. They're immortal."

"It should have been me," he whispered.

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Mira Books, December 2001
ISBN 1-55166-833-5
To ORDER, click here

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 fiancée.

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 turbulance, peace and properity, he nurses a bitter obsession for revenge.

Fate and one remarkable woman will unite the brothers' lives in astonishing unforeseen 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.