Love Unexpected

Back Cover

All Emma Chambers ever wanted was a home, but when her steamboat sinks just outside Presque Isle, she’s left destitute with no place to stay.

An unlikely solution arises when the lighthouse keeper arrives in town.  He’s just lost his wife and is having a difficult time caring for his child.  So a traveling preacher gets the idea that the keeper and Emma might be the answer to each other’s dilemma.  After a hasty marriage, she finds herself heading to the lighthouse with this handsome but quiet stranger.  Nothing in her aimless life, though, has prepared her for parenting a rambunctious toddler, as well as managing a household.

Emma soon suspects Patrick may be hiding something from her, and then she hears a disturbing rumor about the circumstances surrounding his late wife’s death.  It seems as if her wish for a home and family of her own could end up leading her once more into turbulent waters.

Review

The other night  I was curled up on the couch nursing a hot cup of tea and a bad cold.  But in the midst of my aching head, sore eyes, and runny nose, I was deeply engrossed in Love Unexpected.  Its sweeping tale of a damsel in distress, rescued by a handsome lighthouse keeper, followed by a marriage of convenience, and dogged by whispers of past sins and secrets kept me enthralled.  Like a carrot in front of the horse, Jody Hedlund drew me from page to page, and chapter to chapter in this fantastic historical novel, the first in her “Beacons of Hope” series. 

I loved the history behind the lighthouses and their keepers.  Whenever I pass by a historic landmark, my mind immediately jumps to “I wonder who lived there?” and I imagine a grand story of love given and lost, happiness and tragedy, and so on.  In Love Unexpected, Jody Hedlund fashions a beautiful, and at times thrilling, story that will cause me to never look at a lighthouse the same again. 

An awesome novel to kick-start what is bound to be an unforgettable new series.

Book has been provided courtesy of Bethany House and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.  Available at your favourite bookseller from BakerBooks, a division of Baker Publishing Group.