Longing For Home: Hope Springs -- Sarah M. Eden

Are you looking for something special to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Give yourself a treat by reading Longing for Home and its sequel Hope Springs by Sarah M. Eden. This set of Irish Westerns from Shadow Mountain’s Proper Romance series will touch your heart, and once you read the first one you will not want to wait a minute until beginning the second.

Kate Macauley was looking for a position as a housekeeper. What she got was so much more. Tossed into the middle of an explosive feud between the American farmers and the Irish immigrants in the small town of Hope Springs, Wyoming, Kate never anticipated that she would meet two men and fall in love with them both. Yet her broken heart over the family she left behind in Ireland tears at her soul and just might be enough to cause her to give both of them up, no matter how important they have come to her healing.

A story of redemption, romance, and the constant question, “How can Kate repair the animosity between her beloved Irish and the rest of the community?” Kate faces her situation head on and teaches everyone a thing or two. But blood will be shed and danger appears on her very doorstep. Book one will have you longing for more, and book two may threaten to rip your heart out, but I guarantee you will be satisfied by the choices Kate makes in the end.

Remember to keep a box of tissue handy. You’ll likely need it.

If you'd like to know more about Sarah, and about her series, watch this video:

Blackmoore -- Julianne Donaldson

At eighteen, Kate Worthington knows she should be getting serious about marriage, but her restless heart won’t let her settle down. To escape her mother’s meddlesome influence, she dreams of traveling with her spinster aunt to exotic India. But when the opportunity arises, Kate finds herself making a bargain with her mother: she will be allowed to go to India if she has secured and rejected three marriage proposals while spending a season at Blackmoore, the Delafield family’s estate. Enlisting the help of her dearest childhood friend, Henry Delafield, Kate sets out to collect her proposals so she can be on her way. But Henry’s decision to help threatens to destroy both of their dreams in ways they could never imagine.

The first half of Blackmoore drew me in like a great mystery set on the moors along the lines of novels by Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, or the Bronte sisters. The intrigue of searching for a secret passageway, the dark of night with only the flicker of a candle to light Kate’s way, and the constant fear of being caught, either by the man she secretly loves—Henry—or perhaps a ghost that lingers in the abandoned wing of the estate was delicious and I could hardly read fast enough to experience more. Unfortunately, this promise was never fulfilled.  Instead, Henry gives her the clue, and they go to the secret spot, but then nothing really happens, losing the momentum of the perfect build up.    

Perhaps the main reason the novel did not completely live up to its potential was the over abundance of flashbacks, with entire chapters dedicated to rehashing earlier life events that might have been sufficiently told with a detail or two within the story. The lack of chronology became confusing and the constant darting into Kate’s memory was annoying at best. Another hundred pages of story and character development, without the use of flashbacks, would have enriched Blackmoore and brought not only the characters, but the setting itself more to life.  

Although the novel is set in Northern England in 1820, and marketed as Regency, not enough tropes of the genre are present to justify the classification. The tension was well crafted at the first proposal, but there needed to be more play with the other potential suitors, especially the young gentleman who seems to be attracted to her. Kate’s rival for Henry's affection is too perfect, and, despite the set-up, there simply is not enough tension or interaction between Henry's mother and Kate. Sylvia was completely lost from the story, although we are supposed to believe she and Kate are close friends.

But, with all of that said, I did enjoy reading Blackmoore. Perhaps I am forgiving; perhaps fell in love with the characters. The thematic use of the bird songs throughout allowed me to grow attached to Kate and Henry, as well as hope for the best outcome for Henry’s grandfather. I longed to learn more from Herr Spohr, and hoped that all would work out for young Mr, Brandon in the end. I wanted to see Kate’s mother get what she deserved, and to meet Kate’s aunt who would take her to India. I would have loved a little more than what I got, even though I also wanted less of the back story as it was provided.

I will continue to recommend Blackmoore to readers. There were enough positives to outweigh what I deemed as negatives, and it’s likely the average reader won’t care about those things anyway. The characters are entertaining, even the ones who cause Kate’s conflicts, and this novel, like Edenbrooke before it, prove that Julianne Donaldson delivers when to comes to a satisfying, clean romance.    

 

Longing For Home (A Proper Romance) -- Sarah M. Eden

Twenty-six-year-old Katie Macauley needs to convince the influential Joseph Archer to hold true to his word and keep her on his payroll as his housekeeper—despite her Irish roots. When Joseph agrees to keep Katie as his housekeeper, the feud between the Irish immigrants and frontiersmen in the 1870 Wyoming Territory erupts anew, and Katie becomes the reluctant figurehead of hope for the Irish townsfolk. As the violence escalates throughout the town, Katie must choose between the two men who have been vying for her love—though only one might be able to restore hope to her own heart. (From NetGalley)

I loved this book. I hated this book—a good sign!

I was absolutely in love with the characters, and hated the fact that eventually Katie Macauley would be forced to choose between two men she found equally attractive—as did I, her reader. I found myself constantly torn between the two, wondering how Ms. Eden would work it all out in the end. Although from opposite sides of the track, or the red and green roads in this case, both Tavish O’Connor and Joseph Archer had the capability to win the heart of a young woman, who had always before thought of nothing but returning home to Ireland to make right the perceived errors of her childhood, a childhood thrust upon her by the famine and choices no child of her tender age should ever be forced to make.

The attractiveness of both Tavish and Joseph were far above just physical. Each man saw the importance of land just like Katie did, and each strove to maintain a balance of peace and harmony among neighbors, even when the masses favored only the rise to power of a single side of the argument—theirs! But best of all, they both fell in love with her, as she did with them, one experience at a time. The building of their relationships was well paced and believable. It’s no wonder Katie took so long to decide. I’m still not convinced I could have done the same, or that her decision will eventually be final at the series end.

One of the tropes of romance is the triangle in which the main character has two equally attractive options. Of course by the end a choice must be made. I love that the door to friendship and support was not also abandoned in this episode of Katie’s life and that enough story questions were answered to satisfy me as a reader, yet others left open for the sequel the author has planned. (Preview chapter inside the book.)

I've read books or seen movies galore about the plight of the Irish during this time in both their homeland and on the streets of New York, but other than the movie Far and Away, and its look at the Oklahoma land rush, I'd not thought about the difficulty the Irish had in facing discrimination in the rest if the country. Eden's choice of bringing a whole community to Hope Spring, Wyoming, was refreshing in and of itself. The addition of the shift in balance Katie causes made for a conflict worth addressing outside of the romance.

I also loved the fact that Eden chose to have Katie be a 26-year-old woman. So many times a character I envision as being older turns out to be in her late teens, especially in romance despite the fact the men she will chose from are obviously going to be older since they are established landowners and well respected among the town’s residents. Not that this couldn’t be, but more unlikely than giving them all realistic ages in the first place would be.  

My review is based in an eArc downloaded from NetGalley. It is a rough idea of what the final product will look like. (See this to understand why). Therefore the book had some problems in layout design and flaws such as word or information repetition and an instance of timeline confusion, but overall these did not detract from the text itself, and knowing the meticulous nature of the author I can rest assured these were corrected before the final version was sent to typesetting.

A side benefit for me was an introduction to the beautiful strains of Irish music. I wanted to hear the soundtrack of Katie's playing, so I turned to YouTube. There I discovered jigs and reels and lullabies, haunting melodies, some familiar for which I never knew a name, and others that were brand new to me. As a music lover this was time well spent. As a reader the experience added depth to the novel so it's an activity I would recommend to other readers as well..

Overall, I’d give the book an A+ and Highly Recommend to readers who love history, as well as a great romance.