To Follow Her Heart is the final installment of the Southold Chronicles series by Rebecca DeMarino. I was given the opportunity to review this historical romance. I received a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.
First off, let’s read the description:
Duty and love are powerful forces. Only one has the power to make her life complete.
It is 1664 and Patience Terry is devastated to learn that Captain Jeremy Horton’s ship has been shipwrecked off the coast of Barbados. There were no survivors. She had hoped that Jeremy would someday give up the sea and settle down with her in Southold, Long Island.
Unaware his memorial service is being planned, Jeremy sails aboard a British warship with secret orders to attack New Amsterdam and claim it for the British Crown. When he makes his surprise return to Southold–and to an overjoyed Patience–it’s not quite the happily-ever-after his beloved had hoped for.
With a finely tuned sense for authentic historical characters and settings, Rebecca DeMarino plunges you into a world of tall ships, daring journeys, and yearning hearts.
My Thoughts:
I have not read any other books in this series and did not know any of the characters backstories. I would say that you can read this as a standalone book, but I do believe that reading the others in order would be the preferred way to go.
I do have to be a little critical with this book, but make sure to keep reading because I have good things to say as well. Patience is a great name for the main character, because my goodness, does she have to be patient. Jeremy keeps putting the wedding off, for things that don’t seem to be like good reasons to me. “Oh, I have to go build a boat.” As if people that build boats can’t be married. If he isn’t careful that weasel Hobart is gonna horn in on him. I also feel like the part about him being on a British warship should have been drawn out longer. Since it is in the description of the book, you think that it is a big part of the story, but it really only is a couple of chapters. At least if he was stuck on a ship, longing for Patience, for a longer period of time, we could probably understand that more than him being in town but STILL not marrying her.
However, I do have to say, that despite my frustrations, I fell in love with the characters, and despite Jeremy being wishy-washy, I wanted them to get together. And I actually have downloaded the first book in the series, because I want to learn more about the characters. So there’s that! All in all, a frustrating book, but it made me want to read more of this series, which was surprising to me.