“After all, contentment was not measured by experiences lived, but by one’s attitude toward those experiences.”–Nichole Van, Love Practically
Leah Penn-Leith fell in love with Captain Fox Carnegie as a young woman, a shockingly unreasonable act for the otherwise extremely reasonable and capable Leah. Making matters worse, Fox was not exactly enamored of Leah and left for India while she returned to Scotland to care for her young brothers. Two decades later Fox shows up at Leah’s door and proposes a marriage of convenience. He has a young ward who needs a mother and Leah is the most highly recommended woman for the role in town. Despite the less than romantic proposal, Leah accepts and soon finds herself married to the man of her dreams–except he is now a bigger mystery than before and is a broken shell of his prior self, with internal scars to match his exterior ones. Leah is left wondering how to reconcile this marriage with her earlier hopes and if love could ever be a possibility.
This is a heart-wrenching and beautiful book with well drawn characters and a compelling narrative. I have become a big fan of Nichole Van over the years. Her prose is beautiful and I love the titles of all the books in this series. If you like this book, you are in luck as there are four more books in The Penn-Leiths of Thistle Muir series. They are all well done and emotionally satisfying.