"Lane does a superb job creating layers to the Gypsy culture ... a must-have for fans of the series." —Library Journal
Young Etti faces an appalling choice—leave her new-found love, Rafa and marry the stranger the marriage council names for her husband—or be exiled from her Gypsy triibe.
When her father, chief of the Gypsies died, headstrong Etti lost her status, but none of her spirit. She's the first woman to race her horse in Marseilles. She survives attacks by her drunken brothers, the very men who should have protected her, and she's turned the head of Rafa, a delicious Gitano Gypsy from Spain with a tantalizing sense of adventure and breathtaking passion. She dares to break all the rules to pursue Rafa—and the exciting life she craves.
It will not be an easy journey. The sheltered daughter of an esteemed Gypsy tribal chief, Etti's prestige crumbles after her parents' untimely death, and she is left an orphan and outcast. Sprightly and free-spirited, Etti has struggled to meet the behavioral demands and limitations of women in this time of travel and discovery, but failed. The men in her tribe find her habits odd.
As the tribe travels through the pristine Provence countryside for its annual marriage meeting, Etti is the least desired bride. She fears that the all-male council will match her to a man from another tribe.
Then Rafa arrives and sparks a passion in her that surpasses the nightly tribal bonfires. The feeling is mutual. Unwilling to sacrifice his dreams for horse breeding, he has chosen not to wed—until he realizes that, in addition to the heart-stopping passion they share, he and Etti also share the same level of enthusiasm and commitment to horses. Their romance splits the tribe, endangers her life and inspires Etti to fight for her own future in a time of total male dominance.
Etti's Intended is set in fifteenth century England and France during the so-called Gypsy Honeymoon Period, when Gypsies were welcomed, their travels even financed by the nobility in the western European countries in which they traveled.
