Selah Hopewell seems to be the only woman in the Virginia colony who has no wish to wed. True, there are too many men and far too few women in James Towne. But Selah already has her hands full assisting her father in the family's shop. And now she is in charge of an incoming ship of tobacco brides who must be looked after as they sort through their many suitors. Xander Renick is perhaps the most eligible tobacco lord in the settlement. His lands are vast, his crops are prized, and his position as a mediator between the colonists and the powerful Powhatan nation surrounding them makes him indispensable. But Xander is already wedded to his business and still grieves the loss of his wife, daughter of the Powhatan chief. Can two fiercely independent people find happiness and fulfillment on their own? Or will they discover that what they've been missing in life has been right in front of them all along? Bestselling and award-winning author Laura Frantz takes you to the salty shores of seventeenth-century Virginia in this exploration of pride, honor, and the restorative power of true love.
★★★1/2
In the Virginia Colony of 1634, Selah Hopewell works as an assistant in her father's general goods store. She's also been chosen to head up the project of finding mates for incoming "tobacco brides", immigrant women traveling to the New World in hopes of finding good husbands (their travel costs often pre-paid by means of sacks of tobacco leaves by men with high hopes for a good match).
She smiled wryly as she stood near the crowded wharf, the list of tobacco brides clutched to her bodice to hold in whatever warmth could be had in Virginia's incessant coastal wind. Glad she was to be named Selah. Surely no other woman aboard the coming Seaflower could claim that. All around her swirled the reek of saltwater and fish, tobacco and tar. Noisy gulls flew overhead, screeching as if they, too, were welcoming the long-awaited ship. At first sighting a quarter of an hour before, the men of James Towne had been the first to gather, those long suffering souls enflamed through the wants of the comforts of marriage. Each groom would pay one hundred fifty pounds in good leaf tobacco for a bride, an extravagance denied many. But first, the colony's officials assembled at the forefront of the welcome. Dressed in their Sabbath best, hair and beards freshly trimmed, some almost beyond recognition...
Selah herself is considered nearly "old maid" material, still unmarried at the ripe old age of twenty-six. Though hesitant to admit it, she does have a spark of interest in local tobacco lord Alexander "Xander" Renick, but Selah feels that's sticky territory to pursue. Xander, a native of Scotland, is the widower of Selah's best friend, Mattachanna, favored daughter of the chief of the nearby Powatan tribe. Along with managing his estate, Xander also works as mediator between the colonists and the Native Americans.
Though there are mild flirtations and a solid friendship between Xander and Selah, she doesn't give much thought to his romantic life... until the day tobacco bride Cecily seems to set her sights on him. Though it's kind of Selah's job to help these newly arrived women find mates, the thought of Cecily with Xander doesn't sit well with her. Selah can't help but feel protective of her late friend's family --- not only Xander, but also Xander and Mattachanna's son, little Oceanus, who had been living in England for a time after his mother's death, but is now due to arrive back in America any day. Selah just can't picture Cecily being a natural fit in the position of stepmother.
But then she reasons that of course Xander is a grown man who can make his own decisions, so she agrees to Cecily's request to speak with him. While Selah tries to sort out all this, she's also fielding unwanted, questionable attention from the town doctor, Helion Laurent, who is annoyingly comfortable voicing his distaste for Selah having such a position of authority in her father's business. He also seems unnaturally interested in the section of Hopewell Hundred land that he's come to understand is part of Selah's dowry.
As for who Xander has in mind for the job of mistress of his grand estate, Rose-n-Vale, much to Selah's relief he's pretty clear that he has no interest in Cecily. But there's plenty of unspoken shared interests and heart desires between Selah and Xander before anything is officially voiced. Still, opportunities for wooing suddenly become easier when Selah's family makes the decision to move from James Towne central, to a spot a few miles away, closer to Rose-n-Vale lands, where in recent years a new commerce community has sprung up. The hope is that the move will help improve the health of Selah's father as well as create opportunity to expand his business.
With the girl of his heart much closer at hand, Xander is making a lot more "just in the neighborhood" visits. Some of his wooing strategy toes the line between smooth and cringey, but it does become honestly heartwarming as he becomes more confident of his place in Selah's heart and he falls more and more into that protective mode. My one gripe would be that he was a little slow to move on Laurent, arguably one of the biggest threats in Selah's life... I mean, he was around, and while it was admirable that she was so capable of handling things herself.... I don't know, sometimes a lady likes the feeling of her big, brawny man stepping in to assert dominance against a threat... especially in the wooing period of a relationship! 😄
It took me a little while longer to get into this one than some of Frantz's other stories I've read, but eventually I settled in and found the dialogue had a nice flow, and Frantz's attention to detail when conveying the look of living environments or facial expressions made for a rich reading experience. I certainly wasn't expecting the level of violence towards the end, but it actually adds some spice to an otherwise safe plot.
Having been to Jamestown myself, and being at least somewhat familiar with that history, I was going through this story thinking, "Hmm, this has a lot of similarities to the story of Pocahontas..." Sure enough, Frantz includes an author afterword where she states that this novel was, in fact, loosely inspired by the lives of Pocohantas (Mattachanna) and her white husband, John Rolfe (Xander), and John's life after his wife's death, which included marrying a second time (Selah).
FTC Disclaimer: Revell Publishing kindly provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.
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