Review of Laura Frantz's Love's Reckoning

Love’s Reckoning

By Laura Frantz

978-0-8007-2041-4

$14.99

Historical Romance

Revell Books

I loved Laura Frantz’s earlier historical sagas about the American frontier; fans will not be disappointed by this new story set shortly after the Revolutionary War on the western edge of Pnnsylvania—and the edge of known civilization.

Genre readers know what to expect when we pick our familiar favorites. There’s an expected outcome, a methodology to the tale, characters who meet and fall in love and must overcome obstacles. It’s the journey to the expected outcome that offers excitement. As a voracious reader, I appreciate being part of Frantz’s world without the need to stop and look up details, or verify historical issues that feel out of place. I’m a historian first, reader, second, and author, third, so I appreciate the level of research Frantz does to create a world that is both natural and satisfying to the historical fiction lover, full of daily chores, everyday dangers and people of both light and dark hearts—sometimes in one person.

An apprentice must finish his duty to obtain the coveted level of master blacksmith. Silas Ballantyne remembers the Scotland of his youth but refuses to allow the past to interfere with his dreams of becoming master of his own fate. A man of faith, it is only God who has allowed him to maintain his dignity through the terror, degradation and defeat that has taken his youth and young adulthood. Eden Lee’s life is one huge secret—some of which she authored, but many of which even she is ignorant. The daughter of the blacksmith, a depraved reprobate, will she allow those secrets to ruin her dreams of serving others? When Silas, Lee’s latest apprentice, and Eden, a daughter who dreams of escape, meet in this shadowed homestead of Leige Lee, it seems a simple enough plan for them to help each other. Love is only the gift that ties the bow on what should be a perfect package.

Sometimes, doing what’s best for another, no matter how noble the circumstances, ends up creating a disaster. Or does it?

Laura Frantz’s lovingly crafted tale of faith and redemption, desire and dreams will keep the reader turning pages and wishing for more after the last one.

 

Available September 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group

 

Also available at Barnes and Noble