Silver Hills Trilogy

Light of My Heart

by Ginny Aiken

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I loved this book! I really enjoyed the characters, the setting, and the storyline! It gets are rave review from me!

Dr. Letitia Morgan is a strong, independent woman who wishes to make her own life away from her disapproving mother and doing what she loves best - healing people. Finding her medical practice waning in the city, she responds to an advertisement she sees and heads to Colorado where she is certain she will be needed and appreciated.

Convinced that she is unfeminine because of her choice of careers (a woman in a man-dominated field) and desperately wanting to be loved, she sets up her home in the bustling town in Colorado. Immediately, her tender heart is drawn towards the young waifs trying to survive nearly on their own, the young girls caught up in brothels with no where to turn for help, and the haunted newspaperman who cannot seem to get over his wife's death two years earlier. However, her choice to help these downtrodden people makes her unpopular with the "proper" citizens of the town and she finds her medical practice hurting again.

And so the story continues. I really like this strong female character. The type of medicine she practices is more common today with the wide variety of homeopathic practices to choose from, but more uncommon back in the 1890's from what I understand. The fact that this woman is a doctor, is odd enough, but the fact that she chooses the more controversial side of medicine just adds to her discomfiture with conventional society. Fascinating, indeed!

The love story itself has it's sappy moments, but overall it is genuine and believable. A perfect Valentine's read or any day you're in the mood for a little romance!

Can't say enough about this novel! You'll love it! Look for it today!

~ Tracy

Song of My Soul

Revell, 2004

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Adrian Gamble fled to Hartville, Colorado, to save his life and the lives of those he loved. All he wants now is to disappear in this little mining town and forget the day that made him a hunted man. But as the new owner of the town mine and general store, anonymity becomes all but impossible, particularly when his relationship with the pretty store manager raises town suspicions.

Phoebe Williams is a gentle young widow trying to move on. Despite her reservations about the store's mysterious new owner, Phoebe wonders if God has brought them together for some special purpose. Can they both put the past behind them in order to secure the future? ©back cover, Song of My Soul, Ginny Aiken, 2004

This was a delightful love story that I enjoyed very much. It introduces new characters into the little town of Hartville and we get to be reunited with the beloved characters from book one in this series.

As this is a romance, I look at it and judge it from that framework. As a romance it began and developed with great chemistry between the two main characters, Phoebe and Adrian. Their interest in one another and interactions were real and believable. Adrian's denial of expression of his feelings for Phoebe in order to protect her from his past (and it catching up with him) was admirable for a hero in a love story set in this time. However, I thought the fizzle dried up near the end and I was a little disappointed. I would have liked to have seen it continue on to the end of the novel.

The various other characters introduced into the book were very interesting, but I thought the plight of the chinese mine workers wasn't really taken up and dealt with as thoroughly as it could have been.

The attachment of Phoebe to Mei-Mei didn't seem to be flushed out enough as I felt it was a bit too trite and unbelievable. Surely Phoebe's compassion for Mei-Mei was evident but I would have liked to see a real friendship developed there. It would make the eventual loss much more devastating and personal, less of a "statement about the plight of the Chinese workers" which came off as just that. (Chinese workers who were dealt with inhumanely by employers and sold out by their own people with the sale of opium.)

Overall, this was a pretty good read and if you read and enjoyed the first novel in this series, then I'm sure you'll be interested in this second novel. I don't think I'd suggest this book as the one to "hook" you on this series or even this author. I do like Ginny Aiken's work however, and look forward to great things to say about the third in this series.