Publisher’s Summary:
What will it take for a once-privileged young woman to make her way in the world?
It isn’t Cassie Haddon’s fault that she has reached the age of twenty-five without possessing any useful skills. Until the War Between the States, she always had servants. Since then, she and her mother have been forced to rely on family to care for them. But now the well of human kindness has run dry–and Cassie must find work to support them.
Unfortunately, leaving the past behind is easier said than done, and Cassie must summon all of her courage and wits to convince local restaurateur and grocer Jacob West that she’s exactly what his business needs.
With her signature sweet romance, Ann Shorey weaves a tale of two people from different backgrounds finding common ground and the hope of a bright future together.
My Take:
Love’s Sweet Beginning is the third book in Ann Shorey’s Sisters of the Heart series. I’d not read the previous titles, however I’m happy to say this wasn’t a problem. There were probable references to events from the first two books but nothing to cause confusion or force me to stop reading. This was a book I was able to enjoy as a standalone. I did wonder what side of the war Cassie and her family had been on, as I thought this was relevant to Cassie’s change of fortune, but this was satisfactorily answered in the course of my reading.
The characters all provoke different feelings in the reader. I enjoyed Cassie’s willingness to enter into hard work and adapt to her new circumstances. She also faced a trial many of us face today; that of honoring our parents versus our commitments to others outside of the family. She also had a lot more patience with her mother than I might have in her situation. Given her mother’s backstory, I couldn’t decide whether I disliked her or merely pitied her. She placed a lot of emphasis on status and was unhappy that Cassie was doing something so evidently beneath her, except when a family enterprise would profit from it. Jacob also had an interesting backstory, and I wish more had been made of it and that the one thread regarding it had been resolved.
Bottom line: this is a sweet romance focusing on how different people react to change with a particular emphasis on how the nation faced change after the Civil War.
Thank you to Revell for my free copy of Love’s Sweet Beginning, which I received in exchange for an honest review.
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Read an excerpt from Love’s Sweet Beginning
Publisher: Revell (A division of Baker Publishing)
Publication Date: 04 February 2014
Page Count: 352
Read more on: Ann Shorey’s Website Revell’s Website
Purchase on: Amazon Barnes & Noble Christianbook.com
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