Customer Reviews

My Steadfast Heart

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I hadn't read Jo Goodman until I recently read "Tempting Torment". I loved Noah's story and finding it was the last of a trilogy about 3 brothers eagerly hit the net to find the first 2 books. (When you hate to see a good book end, it's great to find it is a series!!) So I found Steadfast Heart and curled up. It didn't take me long to find out that SH was the first of a trilogy of 3 other Goodman brothers....whoops.....but I fell in love with Colin, the hero, on the first page and never put the book down.(And am now starting sequel Reckless Heart). Jo Goodman has outdone herself with this one and Colin's story is not only a keeper but is spectacular. It's not a boy meets girl kiss kiss book. There's a real story with multiple factions that are all relevent and could be stories of their own. It's about the hearbreak of being orphaned and torn from his baby brothers, of commitment in trying to find them, of compassion in trying to help Mercedes and her family, and of the evolution of dealing with all those human emotion. A love story, murder mystery, emotional journey that will bring tears and giggles......Don't miss this one. It's a book that I read fast to find out what was going to happen and yet dreaded getting to the end. I'm sure a re-read is in its future for me, but first I have to "find" Decker and Greydon....Jo, you have my admiration for your talent and a new follower.Thanks.

I bought the book for my daughter and she couldn't put it down. She says it is the best book she has ever read and has already started the next book (My Reckless Heart). Has the third book in the trilogy (With All My Heart) been published yet?

This is the first book of a trilogy about 3 brother who were orphaned and separated at young ages. My Steadfast Heart is about the oldest brother, Colin, and his lifelong search for his brothers. Along the way he meets Mercedes, a penniless aristocrat trying to save her cousins and the family inheritance. Sparks fly when Colin claims her family's estate as payment for her uncle's gambling debts. Find out how these brothers persevere and find each other. Ms. Goodman is excellent at creating rich, humorous plots and characters. If you are a Jo Goodman fan, you will this book.

This book has me hooked on to romance novels. On a road trip I ran out of books to read and my cousin/best friend loaned me this book. I was once very skeptical of romance novels, but this book is excellent, and I would recomend this book for any female, skeptic or no.

A must read!! I loved every minute of it!! Thank goodness it's a series because I didn't want the storyline to end.

Wow. My first book by Jo Goodman has me convinced it wont be my last. What a story! There were so many twists and turns in this I didnt know what to expect next....I would have given this 5 stars in a heartbeat, but for 2 things that niggled at me. First of all..there was so much going on that sometimes I felt that the main relationship between Colin and Mercedes got a bit lost in the mix. My second complaint that was the most glaring..to me anyways...was that I loved the character Aubrey so much that I wanted him to have his own book instead of just having his relationship with Sylvia mentioned in passing. I was bordering on liking him more than Colin and I really hate it when secondary characters become more attractive than the central players. All in all,this was a FANTASTIC read with an ending that made me immediately order its sequel. I highly recommend reading "My Steadfast Heart"..you wont be sorry.

My Steadfast Heart has an irresistible hero and his back-story is well told; his parents were murdered when he was only a child and he and his three brothers landed in a foundling home only to be separated. The heroine also has a history not as fully developed as her hero; she is loyal to her family but also headstrong and stubborn. She had a disagreeable temperament with the hero for a goodly portion of this novel which did not make her a particularly endearing character.

Mercedes arrives at ship Captain Colin Thorne's inn room with more than seduction on her mind. She plans to stab him. Her exceedingly violent and vile uncle is forcing her to do this so he will not have to face the Captain over pistols at dawn, a duel which her uncle initiated. She is thwarted from her mission by the fine Captain. Mercedes does not seem overly sorry for her actions and even manages to knock out Collin before she departs his room, he was altogether too trusting.

The next day Mercedes is stunned to discover her uncle has disappeared and Colin is at her home to collect on his wager against her uncle, her uncle owes several thousands of pounds. To pay off such a debt the estate must be given to Collin.

Mercedes is entirely resentful of Collin from the start but her cousins are not. They have been mightily abused by their father and Collin is everything their father was not, kind, generous and affectionate especially with the young twins.

Mercedes is quick to argue with Collin on just about everything. She jumps to conclusions, is prickly and worse has a real problem of blaming him for some of her actions. She even once slapped him which I found to be a terrible action in light of the physical abuse her uncle heaped on herself and her younger cousins. Mercedes is defensive, so much so she even defends her uncle against some of Collin's accusations. I was simply stunned at this point, had she become so tied to martyrdom for her family that she would defend a brutal man, or was she so combative that she just had to be right when Collin proposed a theory she had not created? She is quick to cast aspirations on Collins motives or she is evasive or outright lies to him to teach him a lesson.

It is only in the final third of this book that I began to warm up to Mercedes, here she becomes a softer kinder person to Collin less likely to bicker and more appreciative toward the hero. Collin is something special throughout this entire novel, he is so patient and understanding that Mercedes has to steel herself not to have emotions for him.

The plot of this novel though runs fairly smoothly and there is a fine tension throughout the story. There are a few big coincidences but I had no problem reconciling them, the story simply would not have worked without these plot devices. The mystery surrounding these two leads deserves four stars but their romance rates only two.