Mask of Scars

Christina's brother and sister-in-law were running an hotel in the Algarve, that lovely unspoiled part of southern Portugal, and when the long university vacation began it struck her as a good idea to go and visit them. At any rate, it seemed a good idea until she realised just how unwelcome she was! Her sister-in-law was so obviously anxious to get rid of her that Christina was thankful when she was offered a job by the local lord of the manor, Dom Carolos Ramirez - but it was not long before she began to have her doubts about that too. Dom Carlos was positively feudal in his attitude to women in general and Christina in particular, and the last thing she wanted was to find herself falling in love with him. But need she have worried, when it turned out that Dom Carlos had a higly suitable fiancee in the background - a meek Portuguese girl who was clearly going to make him a much better wife than an argumentative young English student!

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Romance. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.