Review: A Place in his Heart by Rebecca DeMarino
Anglican Mary Langton longs to marry for love. Puritan Barnabas Horton is still in love with his deceased wife and needs only a mother for his two young sons. And yet these two very different people with very different expectations will take a leap of faith, wed, and then embark on a life-changing journey across the ocean to the Colonies. Along the way, each must learn to live in harmony, to wait on God, and to recognize true love where they least expect to find it.
This heartfelt tale of love and devotion is based on debut author Rebecca DeMarino’s own ancestors, who came to Long Island in the mid-1600s to establish a life–and a legacy–in the New World.
As with several other reviews recently, this one is tough to write.
I enjoyed the story as a whole but…
Well…
I wanted to slap Baranabas with a trout more than once.
Why a trout? Why not ;).
The couple marries while he’s still in love with his late wife. They both know this but also know that he needs the help with his young sons. I didn’t have a problem with any of that – or even that it takes him some time to realize he loves Mary [hey – it’s a romance, no spoiler there, right?]. But it took WAY longer than I expected. Not pages wise – that was about right – but years. The book covers nearly a decade and they spend most of that time married.
The adventures, in England, aboard the ship, and in the New World, were all fascinating and based on Ms. DeMarino’s own ancestors. There’s little written record of the Hortons and most of what she writes is supposition and educated guesses [again no problem with any of that] but without a record of how long it too them to truly fall in love, it feels more than a bit… ugh inducing ;). The ending felt a bit rushed and I would have liked a few more pages.
All that said, I read it in just a few hours and did enjoy the historical aspects of the book. I don’t know if I’ll pick up Ms. DeMarino’s sophomore effort in the same series or not…
Overall rating: 7 out of 10 stars