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Too much praying for me.

After the death of her mother Roxanna Rowan takes a dangerous journey to see her father who is stationed at Fort Endeavor in Kentucky. Chased by indians she leads a rag tag group of women and a mute child through the wilderness to the fort.

Once there she finds only heartbreak at the arrival of the Colonel and his announcement that her father is dead. Thus begins a heartbreaking journey of love, forgiveness and ultimate restoration of broken hearts. Holding fast to her faith and the beloved memory of her father Roxanna quickly becomes the heart and backbone of a desolate forsaken place.

In the midst she finds herself in love with the Colonel. However he is bound by a promise he made her father and a guilt that is eating at his very soul. Will her love and steadfast faith be a light that will lead him to a place of healing? Or will these very secrets and torments of his soul lead to more brokenness?

I found myself crying as the two struggled with their emotions, their past, their love and forgiveness. This author has done an excellent job of creating a story that will be hard to put down and even harder to forget. I believe it will become a favorite of many a reader as they journey into the deep and dangerous wilderness into the midst of the war with the British and the Indians. They will feel their heart wrench inside them as old family bitterness plays out on the battle fields and as prayers are lifted to God for an old testament miracle.

Absolutely outstanding.

Available August 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Thanks to Revell for this review copy. ( )

This book gets off to a really strong start but soon slows to a crawl and then falls off the deep end. Roxanne initially is a proactive character and a dynamic one, but like the plot, that dynanicism seems to just slow and eventually stop. Her love interest, Colonel Cassius to me wasn't that interesting of a character. Granted he does play the part of a romantic blue coat gentleman very well, his struggle to tell Roxanne about the fate of her father is very realistic, especially when his tongue gets halted by his feelings. As somebody who is not from the United States, I didn't feel alienated or like I had to do some background research when it came to the setting of the book, in fact, the author's descriptions were some of the book's strongest points. Unfortunately, the slowness made me fall off, and I ultimately did not end up finishing the book. Give it a chance if you like historical romances, but overall this novel is very 'meh'. ( )

Read my full review here. I started off really liking this book. The imagery was great, the characters vivid...but it was so slow. And on top of that, Roxanne started off smart, but gradually she became dumber. She kept contradicting herself, as well, and was kind of hypocritical. Although admitting she loves him despite whatever wrongs he may or may not have committed, she just refuses to believe that Cass loves her, although I’m not sure why. She comes up with reasons why he would do things for her when it’s so glaringly obvious that he loves her. It’s not until she realizes that she could actually lose him that she has her aha moment, which was honestly too late for me. The battle at the end, along with the “big reveals” seemed way too easy for me with a lot of deus ex machina at play. Things just fell into place way too easily. Despite all that, this is a good book. I don’t want my distaste for Roxanna’s character or the way things were tidied up at the end to discolor my overall opinion of the book. There was one scene in particular when Cass thought Roxie might die that I had to reread about three times because it was so sweet. Honestly, most of the times people were upset with Cass, I totally agreed with him. He was definitely the best, most fully formed character in this novel. ( )