RCR: The Captive Heart by Michelle Griep

RCR: The Captive Heart by Michelle Griep

It’s another month our challenge: Unlocking Ecclesiastes 3. I’m so excited to join you again this year with guest reviews from our reading challenge participants. If you want to submit a review for upcoming months, feel free to email me using my contact form. If you are looking for suggestions as to what to read each month, may I recommend joining my Crystal Caudill’s Reading Friends Facebook group, or visiting Avid Readers of Christian Fiction or Inspirational Historical Fiction Index. I’ll also include a short list at the bottom of this post. Don’t forget to comment at the bottom of the post for your chance to win a book off my prize shelf. *The list of prizes available from my prize shelf can be found here.*

Unlocking the Past: Ecclesiastes 3

Just as Ecclesiastes has two opposites in each verse, most months will leave you with two options to choose from.

“For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.”

February Verse: A time to plant and a time to harvest.
Challenge Theme: A book with a Rural Setting OR a Major Move/Life Change

March Verse: A time to kill and a time to heal.
Challenge Theme: A book with a serial killer or a character in the medical profession.

The Captive Heart

by Michelle Griep

Review by: Crystal Caudill, reposted from 2019 What I loved: Historical details are always a favorite of mine, and I really loved how the complexities of frontier life were displayed, especially for the heroine. To change from the pampered life of England to the comparably savage struggle of the frontier was fun to live through. I learned so much, and of course, I loved the romance. The struggle between the two to learn to love and trust each other was a slow simmer. Like a stew cooked to perfection takes hours and hours, Love is not rushed, and I really enjoyed that.

Favorite Character and Why: Samuel definitely won me over. He was a complex character, a puzzle to be figured out. He was both a man you loved and accepted as imperfect. He was real.

Who would like this? Anyone who loves frontier stories, romance, action, and danger. Also, if you love marriages of convenience, this is a fun story that breaks some of the molds.


Genre: Historical Romance, American Frontier, 1770 Plot Overview: The wild American wilderness is no place for an elegant English governess

On the run from a brute of an aristocratic employer, Eleanor Morgan escapes from England to America, the land of the free, for the opportunity to serve an upstanding Charles Town family. But freedom is hard to come by as an indentured servant, and downright impossible when she’s forced to agree to an even harsher contract—marriage to a man she’s never met.

Backwoodsman Samuel Heath doesn’t care what others think of him—but his young daughter’s upbringing matters very much. The life of a trapper in the Carolina backcountry is no life for a small girl, but neither is abandoning his child to another family. He decides it’s time to marry again, but that proves to be an impossible task. Who wants to wed a murderer? Both Samuel and Eleanor are survivors, facing down the threat of war, betrayal, and divided loyalties that could cost them everything, but this time they must face their biggest challenge ever . . .Love.

Purchase Links: Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Christianbook.com


Giveaway

For your chance to win a print copy, comment with what book YOU read for this month. Use the Rafflecopter below for extra entries and to mark that you left a comment. Entries end on the 7th of each month at midnight EST, and the winner will be drawn sometime that week and notified by email. The winner will be announced on the Rafflecopter widget. *Open to all residents of the contiguous USA, legally able to enter, and an e-book format or Amazon Gift Card will be awarded to those outside that range who are legally able to enter. a Rafflecopter giveaway


Recommendations for March:

  • Kaely Quinn Profiler series by Nancy Mehl
  • When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin
  • Patrick Bowers Files by Steven James (Warning: Graphic)
  • With Every Breath by Elizabeth Camden (doctor, TB, mystery)
  • While Love Stirs by Lorna Seilstad (light/sweet romance, doctor)
  • White City by Grace Hitchcock
  • Wedded to War by Jocelyn Green
  • A Memory Between Us by Sarah Sundin
  • Wings of the Nightingale series by Sarah Sundin
  • The Doctor’s Lady by Jody Hedlund
  • Lost in Darkness by Michelle Griep
  • Within My Heart by Tamera Alexander
  • A Lady in Attendance by Rachel Fordham
  • At Loves Command by Karen Witemeyer

What did you read for the challenge? What were your thoughts on it? Would you recommend it?

The Captive Heart by Michelle Griep

The Captive Heart by Michelle Griep

I finally had time to dig into my older books TBR pile and pulled out a favorite author. This was another great one. Michelle took the marriage of convenience trope and flipped it on its head in a satisfying way.

Genre: Historical Romance, American Frontier, 1770

Plot Overview:

The wild American wilderness is no place for an elegant English governess

On the run from a brute of an aristocratic employer, Eleanor Morgan escapes from England to America, the land of the free, for the opportunity to serve an upstanding Charles Town family. But freedom is hard to come by as an indentured servant, and downright impossible when she’s forced to agree to an even harsher contract—marriage to a man she’s never met.

Backwoodsman Samuel Heath doesn’t care what others think of him—but his young daughter’s upbringing matters very much. The life of a trapper in the Carolina backcountry is no life for a small girl, but neither is abandoning his child to another family. He decides it’s time to marry again, but that proves to be an impossible task. Who wants to wed a murderer?

Both Samuel and Eleanor are survivors, facing down the threat of war, betrayal, and divided loyalties that could cost them everything, but this time they must face their biggest challenge ever . . .Love.

What I loved: Historical details are always a favorite of mine, and I really loved how the complexities of frontier life were displayed, especially for the heroine. To change from the pampered life of England to the comparably savage struggle of the frontier was fun to live through. I learned so much, and of course, I loved the romance. The struggle between the two to learn to love and trust each other was a slow thing, like a stew cooked to perfection takes hours and hours. Love is not rushed and I really enjoy that.

Favorite Character and Why: Samuel definitely won me over. He was a complex character, a puzzle to be figured out. He was both a man you loved and accepted as imperfect. He was real.

Who would like this? Anyone who loves frontier stories, romance, action, and danger. Also, if you love marriages of convenience, this is a fun story that breaks some of the molds.

Rating and Why: Four and a half. Michelle continues to be one of my favorite authors, and this story is no different. I will certainly be reading this one again. Her details were fantastic, the plot great, and the romantic tension consistent all the way to the end.

PURCHASE LINKS

Amazon Barnes and Noble Christianbook.com

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