Title: Secrets of My Heart (Willamette Brides #1)
Author: Tracie Peterson
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publishing Date: Mar 3, 2020
Publisher: Bethany House
Length: 320 Pages
About the Book:
Portland, Oregon, 1879. Nancy Pritchard finds herself a widow with a world of problems when her deceased husband’s schemes start to come to light. As she searches through the pieces of her loveless marriage, Nancy realizes there is a lot that she didn’t know about this man.
Seth Carpenter is a childhood friend of Nancy’s who has recently returned to Portland. He’s delighted to see her again, and as a lawyer, he is able to help her sort through the legal aspects of her husband’s death. But there’s more to him than meets the eye, and his job will take him into a darker side of Nancy’s life–a side she didn’t even know existed. As they search for the truth behind her husband’s death, their attraction to each other creates complications, and the threat to Nancy increases. Can Seth be honest with her about who he really is and why he’s come to Portland? And can Nancy bear another betrayal?
My Review:
Even though this is the first book in the Willamette Brides series, it’s a sequel to the author’s Heart of the Frontier series. I devoured the first series and was excited to see how life had treated the Flanagan sisters after over 20 years. Their presence in this one was minimal, but I was glad that they were all at least mentioned and some of the details of their lives during the in-between were filled-in.
I felt Nancy’s relationship with her husband was intriguing. I found myself going back and forth wondering if he would end up turning out to be a good guy or a bad guy. They discovered he had skeletons in his closet, but at the same point he still felt like a mystery. I think at least part of that was because Nancy herself was trying to figure that out and it was like I was along for the ride as a reader.
Although there were a few places that dragged for me in this one, I am still beyond excited to continue with this series which will follow Faith (Hope’s daughter) next. She had a much larger roll in the first series and is the character I’m most excited to catch up with. The fact that the author puts so much real history into her stories makes them come to life so much more for me. I can’t see what she comes up with next.
*I received a copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers. Thoughts and opinions expressed are mine alone.
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