Skip to main content

HISTORY IMAGINED | A HEART ADRIFT by Laura Frantz


 It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from which she's never quite recovered. But she longs to find something worthwhile to do with her life. Captain Henri Lennox has returned to port after a lengthy absence, intent on completing the lighthouse in the dangerous Chesapeake Bay, a dream he once shared with Esmée. But when the colonial government asks him to lead a secret naval expedition against the French, his future is plunged into uncertainty. Will a war and a cache of regrets keep them apart, or can their shared vision and dedication to the colonial cause heal the wounds of the past?


★1/2

1755 in Virginia --- As the Revolutionary War revs up, twenty-eight year old chocolatier Esmee Shaw is in her hometown of York, settling into assumed spinsterhood after having a painful heartbreak a decade earlier. To her surprise, the past makes an unexpected drop-in with the arrival of her former fiance, Captain Henri Lennox. Henri is back in town, quietly toying with the idea of once again taking up the building of a lighthouse property on a nearby island...a project that was originally the brainchild of Esmee, something they talked of doing together after they were wed. But once their engagement ten years earlier went south, Henri just sort of packed up ship and took off. So here he is now, fielding the 17th century equivalent awkwardness of someone who never answers texts or emails and then has to look those people in the eyes and explain, after an uncomfortably lengthy amount of time has passed. 😄

Henri knows the worst of this is going to come with trying to reconnect with Esmee, when it's clear these two never entirely got over each other. But what is it everyone likes to say to those struggling in the love department? 

If it's meant to be, it will be

Fair enough. There actually is some truth in that.... and sure enough, life rearranges itself to put these two back in the vicinity of each other, whether they go willingly or not. A conversation here and there and in no time these two see the spark never went anywhere, they just wasted a lot of time being stubborn. Hey, we're all guilty of it from time to time. 

*Sidenote: I just find it hard to understand that this guy would be out to sea for a full DECADE and never come back home in that time?! Even centuries ago, no ship was THAT slow.

Their interests still align as well. For one, both are charitably-minded and are led in life by their mutual sense of good values. Esmee spends much of her free time (and donates the little extra cash she might have) towards helping her less fortunate neighbors at the poorhouse. Meanwhile, it is rumored that Captain Henri puts part of his wealth into funding abolitionist groups.

There are some kinks in the works though. Henri discovers he may have to compete with his ship's pastor for Esmee's affections. Next to that, he also hears the government wants to sign him on to head up a secret spy mission against the French, something that will require him to be out at sea again for a good while. 

Esmee certainly stays busy on her end as well! She starts off the story holding down the family chocolate shop business, helping out at the local poorhouse, then she's scheming to become the first female lighthouse keeper of the Colonies on top of trying to keep war and plague off her doorstep all while silently pining for her guy while he figures out his mind. Phew! She seems to have little to de-stress her outside of the occasional moment of book reading and tea dates with friends, but she definitely takes it all on with a strong and straight backbone. 

Though I tend to love Laura Frantz's world building in most of her novels, this one was a little of a slow burn for me, but my interest in the plot elevated once Esme took up remote island life. 

Though Esmee's younger sister, Eliza, starts the novel off appearing as somewhat shallow and even a tinge bratty at times, I loved seeing her transformation towards the end, especially her moment in the spotlight where she comes out almost as a 17th century Elle Woods, surprisingly saving a man's life. 

If you're at all interested in the concept / topic of twin flame / Kingdom spouses, it could be argued that there is an element of that to the love story of Henri and Esme.

FTC Disclaimer: Baker Publishing kindly provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BOOKS FOR THE BIBLIOPHILES | BECOMING MRS. LEWIS BY PATTI CALLAHAN

  BECOMING MRS. LEWIS In a most improbable friendship, she found love. In a world where women were silenced,  she found her voice.   From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan comes an exquisite novel of Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called “my whole world.” When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy.  In this masterful exploration of one of the greatest love stories of modern times, we mee...

SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE (RESTORING HERITAGE #3) BY TARI FARIS

  Leah Williams is back in the quaint town of Heritage, Michigan, and ready to try again to make her business a success. But blank slates are hard to come by, and a piece of her past is waiting for her there. Heir to the Heritage Fruits company, Jonathan Kensington is the guy who not only made Leah's past difficult, he also seems determined to complicate her present as well. Jon is trying to prove to the Heritage Fruits board that he, not his manipulative uncle, should be running the business. The board insists Jon find a new owner for the building that will house Leah's business. To avoid forcing a buyout of Leah's part of the building, Jon strikes a compromise with Leah, and the two go into business together. With her vision and his know-how, it might work. And Leah might realize he's loved her since high school. If only he didn't keep on shooting himself in the foot by boxing her out of important decisions. Sparks fly in this romantic story of two people who must...

A DRAM OF DRAMA | FUN HOME: A FAMILY TRAGICOMIC BY ALISON BECHDEL

FUN HOME   CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER  Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year  •  National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist  •  Winner of the Stonewall Book Award  •    Double finalist for the Lambda Book Award  • Nominated for the  GLAAD Media Award Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir that charts her fraught relationship with her late father.  Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.   In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and...