I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by Revell. I was not compensated for this review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to write a positive review.
A Rebel Heart by Beth White Series: Daughtry House #1
Published by Baker Publishing Group on June 5, 2018
Genres: Christian, Fiction, General, Historical, Romance
Pages: 384
Source: Revell
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Five years after the final shot was fired in the War Between the States, Selah Daughtry can barely manage to keep herself, her two younger sisters, and their spinster cousin fed and clothed. With their family's Mississippi plantation swamped by debt and the Big House falling down around them, the only option seems to be giving up their ancestral land.
Pinkerton agent and former Union cavalryman Levi Riggins is investigating a series of robberies and sabotage linked to the impoverished Daughtry plantation. Posing as a hotel management agent for the railroad, he tells Selah he'll help her save her home, but only if it is converted into a hotel. With Selah otherwise engaged with renovations, Levi moves onto the property to "supervise" while he actually attends to his real assignment right under her nose.
Selah isn't sure she entirely trusts the handsome Yankee, but she'd do almost anything to save her home. What she never expected to encounter was his assault on her heart.
It’s no secret that the Civil War is one of my favorite eras in history, from a fiction standpoint. One of my first book loves was ‘Gone with the Wind’. I love that deeper digging into personalities and world views and family life. That difference in the thought processes that people had, and still have. Not the black and white issues, the human issues. I think, in all the periods in our own history this more obvious and relevant during the Civil War. This book is set in Mississippi five years later. Surrender is over. Everyone is free, well as free as they can be in a depressed Southern economy and many that still don’t accept that everyone is free. Selah Daughtry is bound to save her family home, a sprawling historic plantation that is falling into ruin and failing to come to terms with the taxes and levies and fees being hurled at her. Levi Riggins is a northerner on a mission. Not to save the world or even help the south but to find the bad guy. Acting as an attorney to hide his role as a Pinkerton agent. Yup, stuff is bound to happen.
Stuff does happen. And a lot of things. The problem I had with all these stuffs and things was that they came to easily. I didn’t get enough information to truly buy into the saving of the plantation. I mean it sounds like a great idea and it benefited everyone involved but. . . It was too easy and too simplified and not really shared with the reader in a way that gave it believability and depth. The mystery was too easy. The romance was too easy. Bells even when Levi’s truth came out it was too easy. I struggle with believing too easy. I feel like easy is a distraction from what could have been a stronger story.
Despite the easy of this story I still got amazing characters with intrinsic strength that I could believe in. The research and the history molded the story into something that was easy (almost too) to brush through the pages. I invested in this family, this community, and their lives. I’m looking forward to the next book in this series to dive into the story of the next sister. Their lives, their passions for truth and knowledge and people, and their grace. It was entirely too easy to engage with this book.
About Beth White
I grew up in the South, specifically North Mississippi, which has a rich tradition of fostering writers, storytellers, and musicians. I’m fond of both music and literature, so I amuse myself by teaching chorus and piano in an inner-city public high school by day, while conducting a secret life as a romance writer by night.
Anyway, I find myself, after more than half the years I’ve been alive, still married to my last college boyfriend. He still makes me laugh, he still gives me the warm fuzzies, and he still checks my tires, so I guess I’ll keep him. We somewhat successfully raised two young adults, who are both married and have begun producing amazing grandchildren. My cup runneth over.
Anyone who wants to know more about me should read my books and my blog. I am something of a hermit In Real Life, except in the classroom and on my computer, but I am very much interested in what makes my readers tick. And what ticks them off. And what makes them smile. So please email me here. I promise to answer.
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