Review: A Heart's Danger by Colleen Coble

Sarah risks everything to expose the betrayal threatening the man she loves—but will the risk be worth it? Find out in book three, A Heart's Danger, of Colleen Coble's A Journey of the Heart series. Rand’s new fiancée wants to keep him from returning to Sarah Montgomery . . . for whom his heart clearly still yearns. Sarah just wants to move on with her life at Fort Laramie, but doing so under the watchful eyes of both Campbell—the man whose love she craves—and Croftner—the man whose lies have cost her everything.

Enter to win the perfect pairing giveaway: three books (books one–three in Colleen's A Journey of the Heart series) and coffee to pair with your new book!

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A copy of A Heart's Danger
• A pound of Colleen's favorite coffee, Captain Davy's Coffee Roaster Costa Rican
• A copy of A Heart's Disguise
• A copy of A Heart's Obsession

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on May 31st. Winner will be announced June 1st on Colleen's website.

My Review

Book Description

On the brink of war with the Sioux, Sarah risks everything to expose the betrayal threatening the man she loves.

Christmas is coming, and the air at Fort Laramie has turned cold . . . but relations with the Sioux have turned colder. As tensions between soldiers and natives approach a tipping point, a trap has been set for Rand Campbell.
Rand’s new fiancée wants to keep him from returning to Sarah Montgomery . . . for whom his heart clearly still yearns.

Sarah just wants to move on with her life at Fort Laramie, but doing so under the watchful eyes of both Campbell—the man whose love she craves—and Croftner—the man whose lies have cost her everything.

Will Rand fall victim to the conspiracy and go through with his wedding? Or will he declare his love for Sarah and make good on the promises that brought her into the rugged western territories?

My Review

The book description sounds good, but the actual book was less good. This was mostly because of the characters. Ben Croftner is basically the archetypical bad guy: evil but with no real motive. Sure, we understand he wants to marry Sarah, but why? What is it about her that he followed her halfway across the country?

Jessica DuBois is no better. Yes, we get that she’s jealous of Sarah, but Rand has promised to marry Jessica, and he’s a man of honour. He’s not going to go back on his word, even if he does still love Sarah. Of course, by choosing to align herself with Ben Croftner, Jessica shows herself to be a poor judge of character, so perhaps she really doesn’t understand she has nothing to fear from Sarah’s presence. Anyway, we get that Jessica has this deep-seated hatred and jealousy towards Sarah, but her actions still don’t make any sense. After all, all she had to do was marry Rand and the Sarah problem would go away.

As for Sarah, she's mostly decorative, a personality-less person who exists to serve as the inexplicable object of Rand's love, Ben's obsession, and Jessica's jealousy. She never does much except react to the events around her.

This is the third novella in the A Journey of the Heart series, following A Heart’s Disguise and A Heart’s Obsession. It’s better than the previous two, in that at least the plot arc comes to a satisfactory conclusion. However, it does raise the question of what (or who) the final three novellas are going to be about. Hopefully it will include characters who are a little more rounded.

Thanks to Litfuse Publicity and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.