MY REVIEW:
The gorgeous cover alone would make me want to take home a copy of “Love’s Fortune” but having read the previous two volumes of the Ballantyne Legacy, I knew a fine reading experience would be in store for a few hours of my time. I forced myself to let this novel sit untouched on my shelf until I had fulfilled prior obligations on my review calendar. At long last I was able to settle into my chair with anticipation and I was definitely not disappointed. Although the third installment of the series, “Love’s Fortune” can easily stand alone but why deprive oneself of the pleasurable experience of reading “Love’s Awakening” and “Love’s Reckoning”?
“Love’s Fortune” is Rowena Ballantyne’s story. “Wren” is the only child of Silas Ballantyne’s son Ansel. She has been isolated from the wealth and societal obligations of her Pennsylvania relatives but is suddenly forced to participate in an environment alien to her. Preferring the simple life to which she was accustomed, Wren struggles to fit in and only the friendship of family friend and trusted employee James Sackett offers her any peace. Expected to marry well in order to help promote the family busineses, Wren finds herself falling in love with a thoroughly inappropriate man.
The entire Ballantyne Legacy has been a wonderful reading experience. The author’s attention to detail and historical facts including those that were not covered in my own American History classes, brought our history to life. The characters were quite life-like and it was so easy to either love or dislike them – yes a few of them were very detestable. Although obviously a Christian novel, the spiritual element was not overbearing but was a natural part of the lives of the characters. I liked the characters of Wren and Robert very much. I liked her willingness to do what was required of her yet her determination to think for herself was evident. Robert was a perfect hero – loyal to a fault, honorable, and determined to protect Wren at all times if possible.
I highly recommend “Love’s Fortune” as well as every one of Laura’s other novels. If you haven’t read them, you are missing a blessing.
This book was provided for review by
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
With two very different horizons stretched out before her, one young woman stands on the cusp of an unknown future.
Sheltered since birth at her Kentucky home, Rowena “Wren” Ballantyne has heard only whispered rumors of her grandfather Silas’s vast fortune and grand manor in Pennsylvania. When her father receives a rare letter summoning him to New Hope, Wren makes the journey with him and quickly finds herself in a whole new world–family members she’s never met, dances she’s never learned, and a new side to the father she thought she knew.
As she struggles to fit in during their extended stay, she finds a friend in James Sackett, the most valued steamship pilot of the Ballantynes’ shipping line. Even with his help, Wren feels she may never be comfortable in high society. Will she go her own way . . . to her peril?
With her signature attention to historical detail and emotional depth, Laura Frantz brings 1850s Pennsylvania alive with a tender story of loss, love, and loyalty.
Read an excerpt from “Love’s Fortune” HERE.
Endorsements:
“Laura Frantz surely dances when she writes: the words sweep across the page with a gentle rhythm and a sure step. Her characters in Love’s Fortune are sympathetic yet flawed, making them oh-so-easy to care for, ache for, cheer for. Her historical details are well chosen, and her sense of time and place rings true. Above all, it’s Wren’s journey that engages our hearts and makes the pages turn. Well done, lass!”–Liz Curtis Higgs, New York Times bestselling author of Mine Is the Night
“You’ll disappear into another place and time and be both encouraged and enriched for having taken the journey.”–Jane Kirkpatrick, bestselling author of All Together in One Place and A Flickering Light
“Laura Frantz portrays the wild beauty of frontier life, along with its dangers and hardships, in vivid detail.”–Ann H. Gabhart, author of The Blessed
“Frantz paints a vivid picture of the tough life out in the wild, and yet her characters demonstrate that it was possible to have a wonderful life.”–RT Book Reviews for The Colonel’s Lady
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Laura Frantz is a lover of history, is the author of The Frontiersman’s Daughter, Courting Morrow Little, and The Colonel’s Lady, and currently lives in the misty woods of Washington with her husband and two sons.
