The Smuggler's Visit

Dingle, Ireland, 1579. Englishwoman Norma le Blanc is content with the religious duties that fill her life, until the day Spanish ships drop anchor, and a gorgeously-tanned smuggler, Vicente de Vivar, steps off the boat. Though wary of the mischievous glint in his eye, Norma can't help noticing that the flirtatious captain has a bigger heart than she might have thought. As the summer passes while the Spanish ship is in repair, Norma finds her arguments against him vanishing while her passion grows in a way she has never experienced before.

Across the channel, Elizabeth I is furious that smugglers are frequenting her stronghold of Dingle and robbing her of the import tax. Is it not enough she already wages war with Spain? When she sends an emissary to investigate, Vicente and his men resort to their sneakiest methods yet to keep him off the scent. What no one knows is that Vicente came to Ireland to do more than sell illicit goods. His plan includes a purpose more politically dangerous than even Elizabeth imagined. When Norma discovers this mission, she wonders how she can love a man who seems to be acting traitorously against the Crown.

But she soon discovers that Vicente is a man of conviction who acts upon his beliefs, even when the law stands against him. His purpose in coming to Ireland, in fact, may have less to do with treason than an effort to help two men whose lives are being destroyed by factions greater than themselves. Vicente's tactics become unconventional and even comical as he does all he can to circumnavigate the queen's disfavor. Loving him more than ever, Norma must now face the greatest difficulty of all: the summer is nearly over and the man she loves will soon be gone. But perhaps Norma's greatest fear should be the violence about to rain on Dingle in the shape of an Irish rebel determined to take Dingle, his inherited land, back from the queen at any cost. And the fire that emblazons the town the very night before the Spaniards' departure . . .

Based on Dingle's infamous smuggling history, THE SMUGGLER'S VISIT proves that it is possible to love, even when one is vastly different from ourselves.