I loved The Guynd for its fish-out-of-water story, but even more for the voyeuristic glimpse it offered into the often romanticized world of an aristocratic family and the centuries-old home at the center of it.

In many ways, the house itself becomes a character—formidable, enduring and silently operating as the true head of the family. Generations come and go, but The Guynd remains, carrying its history, traditions and expectations forward.

I especially loved following Rathbone as she threw herself into the complicated work of restoring The Guynd and finding her place within its long history. Her enthusiasm for breathing life back into the house often collided with the realities of the family she had married into—and with a husband far less eager for change. What begins as the romantic prospect of becoming mistress of an ancestral Scottish estate gradually becomes something far more complicated: a story about stewardship, marriage, belonging, and what happens when the life one person is determined to build isn’t necessarily the life the other wants.