Books on Demand, $4.99, ISBN 978-3751961264
Historical Romance, 2020
Elizabeth Grant’s An Independent Heart starts dramatically. Justin Summers and his companion Pepe manage to sneak past enemy lines in France to reach Lord Wellington’s camp. Justin wants to rejoin his regiment, which is led by his brother Stephen, and he hopes that Lord Wellington’s people will help Pepe get home. Our hero hadn’t had it easy. First he was captured, and then, when he managed to find freedom, he spent a while in a guerrilla base, too sick to move. Now that he is among his own people, he receives dire news: Pepe’s village had been razed to the ground, and his regiment including Stephen had been wiped out. Justin has nowhere else to go but back to England to recuperate.
Once the story goes back to England, I find myself wishing that this story had been set during the war instead, because the rest of the story never has the drama and the tension that are present in the first chapter. Sigh.
This one has more of a traditional regency feel than a more mainstream historical romance one. Plenty of conversations, some melodrama about manners, lots of coy glances and adroit conversations – that kind of thing. Our heroine is Claire Lammond, who meets Justin while she is with her family on a trip to London. What happens are events and drama that will bring them together as much as keep them apart. I’m not kidding. To give a proper, thorough synopsis of the story may see me revealing quite a number of spoilers by necessity as this is one of those “And things keep happening!” stories.
Claire is a likable heroine, but I do wonder whether she’d be a good match for Justin, whose experiences would make him a likely incompatible match for our heroine whose worldview is far more sheltered and idealistic. It’s my fault, not the author’s, that I find myself missing those military romances by Carla Kelly – now, those are romances that feature women who have the emotional maturity to give me this impression that the hero would be able to relate to them, talk to them, and confide in them. Mind you, Justin has PTSD. Claire, on the other hand, is worried about behaving in ways that may make him think she is selfish. How is she going to handle him when he’s in his dark moods? Is she able to talk to him about his past? I do wonder.
Also, while I normally have no issues if many things happened as a means to keep the story going – provided that this is done right – this technique isn’t compatible with the author’s narrative style. Perhaps it’s inexperience, or it’s impatience, I don’t know, but the author tends to steamroll her way through her scenes as if she needed to catch a plane in twenty minutes. In the first chapter alone, for example, Julian’s trek to safety, the discovery that his regiment is lost, and his trip back to England all take place within ten very short paragraphs. The rest of the story is like this. I wish I can tell the author, while I am reading this, to slow down a bit. Tell me more about a scene – give me more details, small ones that will make that scene come alive. Don’t just tell me that the guy is stunned or shocked, for instance. Have him say something maybe, only to break it off, and show me how he clenched his fist – these are details that would have made a bigger impact on me than just saying, oh, that guy is shocked, and moving on, here’s what he does next.
With An Independent Heart the way it is, I often feel like I’m in a fast moving bus, looking at the story through the window as the bus moves quickly past everyone. Sure, I can keep up with things, but I wish I had the chance to stop, take in, and savor the scene a bit more.
Still, this story isn’t a terrible read. It’s actually okay – it’s a readable story and there is a charming cadence to the author’s narrative that often brings a smile to my face. The first chapter and the last few chapters also manage to bring on the emotional drama that is quite muted especially in the middle parts of the story. Really, when the author occasionally gets it right, her characters’ more romantic actions and words can resonate with me. It’s just that there are also enough rough edges here to keep me from liking it more.
