Customer Reviews

The Wayward Heart (Zebra Splendor Historical Romances)

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

 

 

This would have been an excellent book, if the author worked a little more on the contemporary language, developing the future/past relationship of the characters, and just plain given the story more attention.

Betty Brooks created some wonderful characters here, but didn't fully develop all of them... some had such tiny parts in the story, I wondered why they were created in the first place.

When Anne travelled a century into the past, she was somehow able to adapt easily to the new surroundings... stretching into her memories of camping with her grandmother. However, camping in modern times is never that similar to travelling into the 1800s.

Ms. Brooks would have created a better story, had she shown the readers the differences in the modern and past communication styles. Anne used modern language, that was easily understood by the characters in the past... even though some of these words meant other things in that time. For example a kid, would be goats... not a child. When Anne called herself an offensive curse word, the characters from the past didn't wonder why she was calling herself a female dog... but instead responded with "you said it!"

The disappointing thing about this is that it was such a good story, that had such promise... if only a little more care and attention would have been given to the differences to the past/present time frame.

In addition to the other problems I listed about the book, the ending wasn't complete.... there were so many loose ends. When reading, I can see how talented Ms. Brooks is, however, a little more development of the story needs to take place... regardless of how long the story would become. This could have been a wonderful romantic story, about some very warm and caring characters.

I loved this book & have read it twice already. I also love wagon train themed books. This was my 1st Betty Brooks book which promoted me to read others of hers, which I have found to be duds so far.

This book drops Anne into the past after being in a tornado. A family in the wagon train takes her in, after being rescued by Lucas. Lucas is half Indian and was rejected in the past by a woman because he's a half breed, so he is leary of getting involved with one again, but is attracted to Anne. The men start to fight over Anne (more land for them as well) and when the wagon train reaches the fort, the wagon master refuses to let her travel unless she is married. She doesn't want a life at the fort & is stuck in the past, so she plans to farm her own land. Anne approached Lucas with the idea on marriage in name only giving him most of the extra land for doing so. He is reluctant, but when she says she'll have to go to someone else & since he'd hate to see her with any of the other men, he quickly agrees. The women make a big fuss about the wedding & nobody knows it isn't real to them, but his friend Hawk.

There is sexual tension for a long time on both sides. Lucas is a scout, so is often gone but starts to get jealous with Hawk spending more time with his wife than he is. After some danger, he stays around more & gets Hawk to do some of his work. Anne also finds an Indian baby with the dead mother, which makes many of the wagon train angry. Lucas agrees to raise it, if Anne amends their agreement to have a real marriage. This story gets better & better.

I would have liked to see Anne have a hard time adjusting, but she took to everything since she camped as a kid & from her grandmother on her farm. To me, having some similar background, I felt it worked though. I highly recommend it!

I can see the where the other 2 less stared reviews have their points, but I enjoyed this book. The hero sounded like he was gorgeous and there were a few laughs in the book as well. For him not believing her-- he found her out in the sun for too long without water, the entire wagon train all thought she had baked her brain with her story of being from the future. He did listen to her though. There were less stated social perceptions of the times also such as times when she'd talk to the men, I could where see some of the situations that women today would take as being friendly but men (in the past) would be thinking she was nothing but flirting. Maybe their use of words wasn't as drastic of a change as mentioned, but the social ways of the times were in there.

I can also agree that she did adjust a little easy, but if you camp & rough it (not in a luxury RV) and knew how to bake & sew from spending summers with your grandma, then it made some sense. I would have liked to have seen her have a little more difficulty though, but it didn't take away from the story about two who agreed to marry for convience & both secretly fall in love with the other & have sexual tension before they finally admit it to each other after a couple misunderstandings. I would have liked it to have been a longer book & wish that the auther would write a continued story or one on their friend Hawk. I read this book in 3 days and am keeping it to reread in the future I liked it so much!

It was a very good book but it could have been better. Anne had such an easy job at adapting to the change in time, it was slightly believable because of her time on her granparents farm but she still did not try once to even think about trying to get back to her own time. And the ending was very rushed. A lot of loose ends I agree. First time I read this author. Probably the last.

The Wayward Heart had all the elements needed for a good time travel romance. Unfortunately, the author went all over the place trying to add depth to too many characters and ended up stretching too thin on the main characters. The plot traveled along OK but wasn't developed as much as I think it could have been. More development of plot and less description would have helped. The ending was weak also, not resolving loose ends like does the main male lead ever believe the main female lead has come from the past, etc. Very unsatisfying, left me dangling. I hope she trys again though, definite potential if she keeps at it.