Night’s chill tickled her skin. Lonnie pressed her hands together and glanced up. He was even more handsome up close. Having grown up the shy, awkward daughter of Joel Sawyer, she’d hardly spoken to any boy, let alone the one who had mothers whispering warnings in their daughter’s ears and fathers loading shotguns.
Pretty Lonnie Sawyer is shy and innocent, used to fading into the background within her family, and among the creeks and hollows of the Appalachian hills. Though her family is poor and her father abusive, she clings to a quiet faith. But when handsome ladies’ man and bluegrass musician Gideon O’Riley steals a kiss, that one action seals her fate.
Her father forces her into a hasty marriage with Gideon—a man she barely knows and does not love. Equally frustrated and confused by his new responsibilities, Gideon yearns for a fresh start, forcing Lonnie on an arduous journey away from her home in Rocky Knob.
Her distant groom can’t seem to surrender his rage at the injustice of the forced matrimony or give Lonnie any claim in his life. What will it take for Gideon to give up his past, embrace Lonnie’s God, and discover a hope that can heal their two fractured hearts?
Gideon only ever cared about himself. Now that Lonnie is his wife, will he ever be worthy of her heart?
This 352-page book was published by Multnomah Press in October of 2012.
My review:
The setting was the first thing that piqued my curiosity. I wasn’t aware of any romances set in Appalachia. In children’s fiction, Cynthia Rylant has brought that area to life. In adult fiction, Frazier’s literary masterpiece, Cold Mountain comes to mind.
Ms. Bischof’s descriptions of Appalachia are breathtakingly real. While I’ve never been there, she did complete justice to my literary imagination’s view of it, with its moist, misty, mountain forest terrain. Virtually all of her descriptions, whether they be of food, people, you name it, are almost like a Vermeer painting in their precision and detail. This was the book’s value for me. This was the one area where the book actually felt romantic to me, and lived up to its Inspirational Historical Romance label.
Now for what I had trouble with as a reader: whenever I think of Appalachia, I think such things as poverty, illiteracy, moonshine, brutality, and incest. All but incest are present in this novel. It was earthy, it was brutal, it was real.
That was an eye-opener for me. I’ve been critical of historical romance at times because an author’s depictions of a place or an era, or character actions, are far more fantasy than fact. Not so with this book. It was so real that it was frequently unpleasant for me, despite the exquisite writing.
The story began with a shotgun wedding that shouldn’t have had to happen. Poor weak Lonnie is saddled with selfish, stupid, and terribly unlikeable Gideon. Gideon, who remains unlikeable almost to the end. Yet as a reader, I also felt sorry at times for Gideon, who never asked to be saddled with Lonnie.
This setup was Ms. Bishof’s opportunity to fully render her themes. Sometimes marriages do get off on the wrong foot. Frequently, both husband and wife are immature, selfish, and in need of character growth, redemption and forgiveness.
Throughout the book, Gideon continues to make foolish mistakes, and God sends him thoroughly to the woodshed, so to speak, for his actions. I didn’t enjoy this aspect of the story. Certainly some of it was necessary, in order for God to set Gideon on the right path. But I began to feel that poor Gideon was presented as far too much of a whipping boy, and Lonnie too much of a saint. Had the book been 50 pages shorter, and if Gideon had wised up more quickly, I would’ve enjoyed it more. I wearied of reading about his endless coming up against a set of cardboard villains, and his continuing stupid choices.
Ms. Bishof is as good at showing emotional nuance as she is at description, and so most of her characters were so real, you’d swear they are living, breathing people. Because she is so good at this, it surprised me that her villains were cardboard, although she’s not alone in this. Cardboard villains, unfortunately, tend to be a staple of romance.
Despite the book’s drawbacks for me—and they are drawbacks only due to my personal taste, and not the book’s actual quality—I would rate the book highly, even if I wasn’t overly in love with it. For some readers, Be Still My Heart will go on their keeper shelves.
I received this e-book free of charge through the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review. The opinions are totally my own.
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