Author Interview and Review: Follow the Heart by Kaye Dacus

Katherine Dearing has been sent from Philadelphia to England to find a rich husband who will be able to salvage her family’s financial situation. But at twenty-seven, is she too old to attract a rich husband? Or any husband? Accompanying her is her younger brother, Christopher, who has recently qualified as a solicitor specialising in railway law. He too is under pressure to marry well, although having a profession at least means he can support himself, but both of them find they are attracted to the wrong people.

The siblings are staying with their maternal uncle, Sir Anthony Buchanan, and their cousins, Edith, Dorcas and Florence. There Sir Anthony organises a house party where Kate and Christopher are introduced to many members of the aristocracy, including Viscount Thynne . They also meet Andrew Lawton, a garden designer currently working on the Wakesdown Manor gardens, and Honora Woodruff, governess to the youngest Buchanan.

I really liked the characters, even the ones I didn’t like (if that makes sense). Edith reminded me of Lady Mary from Downton Abbey—well written, but unpleasant and with too high an opinion of herself. Dorcas and Florence were much more likeable, even though they were only minor characters, so I hope we see more of them. A lot of the plot revolved around the gardens, as Kate is a keen gardener, albeit one with quite different ideas to Andrew.

I am always nervous when I see a novel set in England by an American writer, especially a historical. I have had too many ruined by insufficient research and an abundance of Americanisms, so I am relieved and pleased to say that Follow the Heart had no noticeable cultural cringes or historical anachronisms (and, in regards to possible factual errors, the subplot was heavily related to gardening, a subject I know little about, so I really can’t comment). I was also very pleased with the way the Christian aspects of the story were handled, particularly with Kate. My one issue is that the end of the novel felt a bit rushed—although that could be more about me reading too fast to find out how the problems are resolved.

Follow the Heart is the first novel in the new Great Exhibition series, set around Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, London, in 1851. As Follow the Heart finished just after the beginning of the Exhibition, I look forward to seeing more of the Great Exhibition in future novels (hint, hint).

Thanks to B&H Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

I was interested in finding out more about Kaye Dacus, in particular about how an American researches and writes stories set in Victorian England. Thanks to Kaye for suppling the answers to my questions:

How did you get into the mindset/history of the era?
I had a basic knowledge of the mid-19th Century in England through studying both history and literature in college. But I really started learning about it in earnest when I became fascinated with the Great Exhibition several years ago and decided it would make a great backdrop to a series. I tend to first start getting into an era by watching costume-drama adaptations of novels written or set during that time and in that location. In this case—lots of Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, and lots of bio-pics about Queen Victoria’s early life/rule. Can it get any better? Being able to watch North & South and The Young Victoria over and over and over again and call it “research”?

Then I start reading the books on which those movies are based. I “collect” interesting words and turns of phrase, look for methods and manners to behavior and social interaction, get a feel for the way the English language was used by those who knew it best during that time. I also find nonfiction research books that can explain the household, society, gender politics, travel modes, fashion, etc.

What interests you most about the Victorian era?
I love that it still has the sensibility of the Regency era—from the activities like balls and dinners to the formality of courting customs—yet in 1851, the world is on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution: train and steamboat travel, telegraph, indoor plumbing (“retiring/refreshing rooms” with pay toilets at the Great Exhibition!). I also love that women were starting to come into their own a bit more. Still not considered equals, but at least starting to get some recognition for their contributions and accomplishments in society.

Where did the idea come from/what was the inspiration?
In 2001, I watched Victoria & Albert on TV and fell in love with the love story of these two monarchs of England. But that wasn’t the only thing I took away from it. I was also fascinated by the scenes which portrayed the planning and opening of Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition in 1851. Then, a few years later, I watched another mini-series: North & South. No, not the one about the American Civil War, the one based on the classic, but little-known, novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. It also has a scene that takes place at the Great Exhibition. Once I saw that, I was hooked—on the era and on the event.

(I loved North and South as well).

Why did you choose to set this series in Oxford, when the Great Exhibition took place in London?
I read at least three or four British-set historical romances each month—and without fail, the majority of them are set in London. It’s a setting that has become over-exposed. Also, with a landscape architect as my main hero, I needed the action to take place at a country house, not in the city. By the 1850s, Oxford was a large enough city to have railway service to all of the other major cities, but still quaint/small enough to give the small-town feel that I love to use in my stories. Plus, there was a lot of chaos happening in London in early 1851 due to the final preparations for the Great Exhibition, and I felt like that could overwhelm what I wanted my story and settings to be.

How did you choose your characters' names?
Funny story . . . Kate’s name was originally Meg and her maid’s name was Joan. Until I picked up a book by a writer friend and discovered those two names (as heroine and her maid, no less!) on the first page. So I went back to my original story idea and the images of the actress who’s the template for the character. And almost as soon as I did, I heard her voice very distinctly in my head: My name is KATE. But rich men don’t marry Kates. They marry Katharines. So I changed her name and nickname to Katharine/Kate (Katharine spelled with an A in the middle in honor of my favorite actress Katharine Hepburn). Andrew is a name I’ve always loved and wanted to use, and it suited this landscape architect perfectly.

(And we know the truth of this, seeing as Kate Middleton is now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge)

What’s the takeaway/what do you hope will stick with people when they finish reading the book?
Women, especially, tend to look at our choices as a series of obligations—we do what we feel we are obligated to do for the sake of our families, not necessarily what we feel our hearts are telling us to do. I believe, and it’s the theme of this book, that we spend too much time worrying about how we can fix/help/support our families (or those around us at work or in friendships) and not enough time listening to and trusting God. When we pray, we tend to tell God what’s wrong and ask him to fix it. But do we ever really take the time to just be still and listen to what God is trying to tell us? And can we really let God take care of those we feel responsible for and let go of that burden of responsibility that may not, in truth, be ours to bear?

You can find out more about Kaye Dacus at her website.

Review: Brandenburg by Glenn Meade

Brandenburg: A Thriller was first published in 1994, and it shows. There is a 1997 edition also for sale on Amazon, and the reviews are extremely mixed, with the same number of 1-star reviews as 5-star. It’s now been republished by Howard Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster that publishes Christian crossover fiction.

The cool 2013 cover disguises the fact that Brandenburg is set in 1994 and hasn’t been updated either in content or in writing style. In a way that’s good—the story just wouldn’t add up if it was set in 2013—but in some ways it’s bad. It would have been easier to get into the plot if it was made clear the book was set in 1994, rather than leaving the reader to work it out through clues like references to CD’s, tape recorders, phones with cords and the Times Atlas (no Google Earth or Wikipedia in this universe).

And how do I know Brandenburg was definitely set in 1994? It opens on Wednesday, November 23, and it only took a couple of minutes on my phone’s calendar app to work out that November 23 was a Wednesday in 1994, 2005 or 2011. And 2005 and 2011 are too late for the technology described in the book.

So, what’s Brandenburg about? The blurb describes it as “a British agent and a German woman find themselves unraveling a plot to bring about the Fourth Reich”. Maybe so, but Joseph Volkmann and Erika Kranz don’t discover what the plot is until past the halfway point—until then they are merely trying to discover who killed Erica’s cousin, a South American journalist who was chasing a story that had German connections.

My main problem with the plot is that it just wasn’t thrilling. I finished reading at the 80% mark when I realised I really didn’t care enough about any of the characters to want to find out what happened at the end (at a guess, given that this was set in 1994 and Berlin is still standing, the good guys won). A reviewer on Amazon said “Meade doesn’t give anything away until the last quarter of the book and that's what makes such an intriguing read”. Each to their own, but I kept waiting for something to happen, and I kept being disappointed. On the plus side, my housework got done.

Meade’s writing is compared to Dan Brown, which should have warned me off. I don’t like Dan Brown’s writing, and I don’t like Meade’s. It goes against all the guidelines of modern fiction (possibly because it was written before the guidelines were). It’s full of uninteresting narrative and long dumps of information that don’t really seem in character (the first conversation between Volkmann and Kranz was a case in point). There is a lot of violence, some of which is gore for the sake of it as it serves little or no purpose in forwarding the plot. The third-person point of view flips between characters so much as to be confusing. And not making the time period clear didn’t help. It has no Christian content at all, despite being published by Simon & Schuster’s Christian imprint.

On a more positive note, Brandenburg is tightly-plotted, although the profusion of cardboard characters that only manages to avoid complete confusion by focusing mostly on Volkmann. If you’re looking for a good modern Christian thriller I’d sooner recommend Noel Hynd, Don Brown (who writes US Navy legal thrillers, and shouldn’t be confused with Dan Brown) or Richard L Mabry.

Thanks to Howard Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Glenn Meade at his website.

Review: Wishing on Willows by Katie Ganshert

Robin Price lost her husband, Micah, four and a half years ago. She has an almost four-year old-son, Caleb, and runs a café in the small town of Peaks, Iowa—a dream ignited on her honeymoon, when she and Micah spent three weeks touring European cafés. But her dream might be about to come to an end: the town council wants to build condominiums, and Robin’s café is the logical site, even though she shares the building with One Life, an important local ministry to the poor.

Ian McKay hopes to be the developer who will be responsible for building the condos. Getting this project will be a job-saver for his father’s company. But Robin is being stubborn and won’t even listen to his offer. And as he spends time with her, Caleb and her extended family, he discovers that maybe he doesn’t want to take this away from her.

I really enjoyed Katie Ganshert’s debut novel, Wildflowers from Winter (which I also reviewed), but I didn’t enjoy this as much. In Wildflowers from Winter, Robin was a new widow, and it made sense that she was struggling in her grief and that her loss was the defining part of her personality.

But Wishing on Willows is set four years later, and not only is Robin not ready to let go of her own grief, but she is shouldering the grief and problems of others and almost sinking under the burden. Yet none of her friends or family have addressed this. They step in to help her in the café and babysit Caleb, but it seemed to me that Robin was burying her grief in activity, which can’t be healthy, and her friends and family are enabling her.

I just wanted to shake Robin and make her read something like Women Who Do Too Much… and then I realised, hey, this is fiction. Robin’s not real. So even while I have these issues with Robin’s character, all credit to Katie Ganshert for making me forget she was just a fictional character. I still like Wildflowers from Winter better, but I’ll be interested to see what comes next. Will it be Gavin’s story, or Amanda’s?

Thanks to Blogging for Books for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Katie Ganshert at her website.

Review: The Message on the Quilt by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Emilie Rhodes is eighteen, the daughter of a newspaper owner, and wants to be a journalist against the wishes of her parents. She plans a series of articles around the annual Chautauqua in her home town of Beatrice, Nebraska—when she is not accompanying her three cousins, the singing Spring Sisters (a Chautauqua is a musical, cultural and educational festival).

Noah Shaw was orphaned at thirteen, but despite his disadvantaged childhood has managed to create a successful career as an actor, performing at events around the country. He meets and is immediately attracted to Emilie, but a chance discovery about his parents and the truth behind the quilt his mother made might mean the end of the relationship.

There are a variety of supporting characters to add depth and interest to the plot, but not so many as to become confusing, and I liked all the characters. The plot was interesting and it was evident that the Chautauqua and the emerging women’s rights movement had been well-researched, but not so much that this intruded on the story. I like my historical fiction to be historically accurate, so this was a big plus.

I also liked the way the characters interacted, particularly Emilie and Noah. Their attraction was immediate, and believable. It is a whirlwind romance, but it rang true as they both had a shared Christian faith and common interests in the arts, with Emilie’s journalism and piano-playing, and Noah’s acting and reciting. Most importantly, I could feel the attraction in the writing, which is no small achievement.

I have enjoyed all the books in this series, but I think The Message on the Quilt is my favourite, partly because I could relate to Emilie trying to find her way to use her God-given talents in a male-dominated field. Each book can be read as a stand-alone, and they can be read in any order, as the common theme is a quilt, not characters or specific location. Recommended.

Thanks to Barbour and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Josiah's Treasure by Nancy Herriman

Sarah Whittier has just acquired the lease to develop her art design studio, where she will train and employ young women with no other honourable options in 1882 San Francisco. But all her plans might come to nothing: not only is she having trouble finding investors for her studio, but there is a rumour of treasure in the house she recently inherited which has incited a break-in, and she may lose her house to a stranger.

Daniel Cady has spent months locating the father who abandoned him, his mother and his two young sisters nine years ago. But instead of finding his father, he finds Josiah is dead and an attractive young woman with high ideals has inherited the estate, not his children: apparently, Josiah believed his family was dead.

It’s not really made clear why Sarah has to go bowing and scraping to find investors for her art studio, given that she has just inherited an estate worth thousands (even if there isn’t a lot of ready cash, there is a property to use as collateral). And the early chapters of Josiah's Treasure allude to Sarah’s history in a way that makes it feel as though this is a sequel when it is not (I checked, because it really felt as though there was a background that I was supposed to know).

But Josiah's Treasure evens out as Sarah and Daniel work together to determine who is trying to break in to the house, find the truth to the rumours that Josiah left a fortune in gold hidden in the house, as well as discovering a mutual attraction. I liked Daniel but didn’t really relate to Sarah. Without having the background as to why she wanted to save and train the girls for her art studio, she came across as too cliché in her apparent perfection, and we didn’t see any change in her lack of faith in God. We were told she had not changed, but not shown that change, and that was a definite weakness. Enjoyable enough, but predictable.

Thanks to Worthy Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Nancy Herriman at her website.