The Mackenzie Chronicles

Welcome to the Mackenzies / McBrides series! The Mackenzie Chronicles is a guide put together by Jennifer Ashley to the books in the world of the Mackenzies. In this guide, you’ll find character sketches of the main couples in each book, a brief synopsis of each story, an excerpt for that book, and Jennifer’s notes and thoughts about the story and the characters—challenges she faced as well as what she enjoyed most. The Chronicles includes a family tree, a series timeline and reading order, plus publication order and a guide on how to find the books. It all begins with The Madness of Lord Ian!

"Welcome to the Mackenzies / McBrides series! The Mackenzie Chronicles is a guide put together by Jennifer Ashley to the books in the world of the Mackenzies. In this guide, you'll find character sketches of the main characters in each book, a brief synopsis of each story, an excerpt for that book, and Jennifer's notes and thoughts about the story and the characters, challenges she faced as well as what she enjoyed most. The Chronicles includes a family tree, a series timeline and reading order, plus publication order and a guide on how to find the books."--Back cover.

In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie traveled 1200 miles on the immense river in Canada that now bears his name, in search of the fabled Northwest Passage that had eluded mariners for hundreds of years. In 2016, the acclaimed memoirist Brian Castner retraced Mackenzie's route by canoe in a grueling journey -- and discovered the Passage he could not find. Disappointment River is a dual historical narrative and travel memoir that at once transports readers back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of globalization and climate change. Fourteen years before Lewis and Clark, Mackenzie set off to cross the continent of North America with a team of voyageurs and Chipewyan guides, to find a trade route to the riches of the East. What he found was a river that he named "Disappointment." Mackenzie died thinking he had failed. He was wrong. In this book, Brian Castner not only retells the story of Mackenzie's epic voyages in vivid prose, he personally retraces his travels, battling exhaustion, exposure, mosquitoes, white water rapids and the threat of bears. He transports readers to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote indigenous villages and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that could become a far-northern Mississippi of barges and pipelines and oil money.

When in trouble, seek a Highlander ... Even if you pushed him into a river ten years ago ... When Evie McKnight slams into Jamie Mackenzie on a quay on Southampton, she flashes back to the day she accidentally knocked him into the river Cam. When she fished him out again, he shocked her with a searing, bold kiss before walking away in dripping wet shirt and kilt. Evie has no business reveling in memories of Jamie then and the nearness of him now—she is betrothed to a respectable man from a respectable and wealthy family. But Jamie appears everywhere in London, assisting Evie and her sisters, becoming friends with her fiancé, and agreeing to be drawn into the heist Evie has planned in order to save her best friend’s father from ruin. The son and heir of Ian Mackenzie, Jamie has roamed the world encountering adventure after adventure, and now he’s back home to settle down as he promised his family. But Jamie is restless, searching for something he can’t seem to find, trying to live up to his potential as the son of a genius. When he sees Evie again, he knows what he’s been striving for, and he is not going to let the trivial matter of her betrothal to a dull stick and the fact that she wants to break into the British Museum put him off. Jamie is Ian Mackenzie’s son all right—he’ll use all the Mackenzie determination and adroitness to prove that she is for him, and he for her.

Cathy Alexander’s journey began with a dream of becoming a doctor, but when she joined the Army and was sent to Vietnam, her dream quickly becomes a nightmare. As a nurse at the 95th Evac Hospital, she witnesses the brutal realities of war. She perseveres and graduates from medical school. Despite her achievements, the Vietnam War left a lasting mark on her psyche. She must confront the memories she’s been trying to forget. Will she overcome her past and find a way to move forward? "Angel’s book is a vivid depiction of the horrors of war. You find yourself drawn in from the very first page. Her character development puts you right inside their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Angel writes so you feel the intensity of the battles, the despair of the wounded as well as the survivors who process the guilt of surviving." - Patti Hendrix, Nurse, 85th Evac Hospital

In the tradition of Michael Herr’s Dispatches and works by such masters of the memoir as Mary Karr and Tobias Wolff, a powerful account of war and homecoming. Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late. They relied on an army of remote-controlled cameras and robots, but if that technology failed, a technician would have to don the eighty-pound Kevlar suit, take the Long Walk up to the bomb, and disarm it by hand. This lethal game of cat and mouse was, and continues to be, the real war within America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But The Long Walk is not just about battle itself. It is also an unflinching portrayal of the toll war exacts on the men and women who are fighting it. When Castner returned home to his wife and family, he began a struggle with a no less insidious foe, an unshakable feeling of fear and confusion and survivor’s guilt that he terms The Crazy. His thrilling, heartbreaking, stunningly honest book immerses the reader in two harrowing and simultaneous realities: the terror and excitement and camaraderie of combat, and the lonely battle against the enemy within—the haunting memories that will not fade, the survival instincts that will not switch off. After enduring what he has endured, can there ever again be such a thing as “normal”? The Long Walk will hook you from the very first sentence, and it will stay with you long after its final gripping page has been turned.

SECOND SIGHT AND SEDUCTION… Daniel Mackenzie lives up to the reputation of the scandalous Mackenzie family—he has wealth, looks, and talent, and women love him. When he meets Violet Bastien—one of the most famous spiritual mediums in England—he immediately knows two things: that Miss Bastien is a fraud, and that he’s wildly attracted to her. Violet knows she can’t really contact the other side, but she’s excellent at reading people. She discerns quickly that Daniel is intelligent and dangerous to her reputation, but she also finds him generous, handsome, and outrageously wicked. But spectres from Violet’s past threaten to destroy her, and she flees England, adopting yet another identity. Daniel is determined to find the elusive Violet and pursue the passion he feels for her. And though Violet knows that her scandalous past will keep her from proper marriage, her attraction to Daniel is irresistible. It’s not until Daniel is the only one she can turn to that he proves he believes in something more than cold facts. He believes in love.

The past never sleeps. The truth never dies. Only Harlan MacKenzie can sense the troubling secrets of the Big Purple House-secrets that entangle his family in deceit and murder. When a stranger appears weaving a web of deception, hell-bent on correcting an old grievance, the dark revelations about the historical mansion and his stormy, friends-to-lovers relationship with the owner, Phaedra, are further complicated. As the past and present implode, Harlan and Phaedra are plunged into a life-threatening mystery, risking not only love but their lives.

Lady Eleanor Ramsay is the only one who knows the truth about Hart Mackenzie. Once his fiancee, she is the sole woman to whom he could ever pour out his heart. Hart has it all--a dukedom, wealth, power, influence, whatever he desires. Every woman wants him--his seductive skills are legendary. But Hart has sacrificed much to keep his brothers safe, first from their brutal father, and then from the world. He's also suffered loss--his wife, his infant son, and the woman he loved with all his heart though he realized it too late. Now, Eleanor has reappeared on Hart's doorstep, with scandalous nude photographs of Hart taken long ago. Intrigued by the challenge in her blue eyes--and aroused by her charming, no-nonsense determination--Hart wonders if his young love has come to ruin him . . . or save him.