From this day forward, book #36

Finally, my friends, a book I can really sink my teeth into!!  I mean, any book that starts out like, "March 1816 'We are going to die!' Rachel Gordon's young maid cried out."

Rachel and her maid, Maddy, are headed towards their new home in South Carolina.  Rachel, now estranged from her family in England over her marriage to Tom, who was actually a really bad guy but she didn't know it when she married him, but Tom actually fell overboard the ship on the way over (in a drunken stupor) so now Rachel is alone, and did I mention 8 months pregnant?  Rachel and Maddy are headed toward their glorious new plantation in the middle of this thunderstorm.  All they have to do is make it to the house and it will be warm and cozy, with their servants waiting to attend to their every need.  NOT!!!  

But on the way the horses end up freaking out in the storm, breaking free of the wagon and sending Rachel and Maddy flying while the wagon goes tumbling.  Luckily (as can only happen these books I read!) who should come by but a doctor (Nathan) -- a single man resolved to live the single hermit life because of his trauma and terrors in his earlier life -- and luckily he lives close to get the girls, take them to his cabin, and deliver the baby.  

And that is just part of Chapter One!!  I mean, who does not get fired up about a book like that?!?  Throw in Nathan's grandfather, who practically raised him, who vehemently hates the English for killing his one and only son (Remember the Revolutionary War?) and kicks Nathan and Rachel off his land; George Butler the neighbor who nearly scared the beegeebees out of Rachel but ends up falling in love with Maddy; and, oh yeah, that grand mansion Rachel was going to?  Just a run down farm with most of its land swampy bog ... and comes with a dead body for free!!  

Needless to say, I highly recommend this!!

Penniless, pregnant, and newly widowed immigrant Rachel Gordon doesn’t believe her situation could get any worse… until she meets her new neighbors. Shortly after the War of 1812, Rachel and her husband set out from England for a plantation in South Carolina, which he had purchased sight unseen. However, while en route, Tom Gordon fell overboard and drowned, leaving Rachel, frightened and alone, to make a home for her and her newborn. Can a battle-scarred American physician who comes to her rescue also heal her wounded heart?  (picture and description from amazon)

Happy Reading!!

O:)
Melissa