A Stolen Heart: Blog Tour, Review, and Giveaway #LoneStarLit

A Stolen Heart is both romance and mystery, with some Texas history on the side.

Lydia is an interesting character. In a time when women were expected to marry and raise a family, she has no intention of marrying. She is willing to put her previous life as a teacher behind her and start again in a new town. She knows her mind and goes after what she wants. Lydia is a refreshing change from usual damsels in distress in historical romance novels. And how she manages to make any kind of candy in the Texas heat pre-air conditioning is astounding to me.  I don’t even turn on my stove between May and September – let alone attempt to make candy.

Travis, as the local sheriff and lawyer, makes it a point to welcome Lydia to town. He is struggling to keep his town safe since becoming sheriff. A string of petty crimes, along with the disappearance of one of the town members, has really confounded Travis. But the one bright spot of his day is walking Lydia to and from her confectionery shop.

The secondary characters in A Stolen Heart make a real impression. Aunt Bertha was a hoot. The matriarch of the town, she is constantly match-making and causing mischief.

Travis’s father Abe is a cantankerous old man who blames any and every Northerner for the loss of his leg at Gettysburg. But Abe turns out to be a real softy by the end of the novel. I’m glad the he had a change of heart about Lydia.

The mystery aspect of A Stolen Heart is what drives the story for me. And there are so many mysteries. What happened to Edgar? What happened to Aunt Bertha’s daughter? Who is wreaking havoc in the town, stealing chickens, breaking windows, poisoning animals. All of the mysteries in town are solved by Travis and Lydia working together to catch the criminal. We still aren’t sure what happened to Aunt Bertha’s daughter. I’m hoping that the next book(s) in the series will provide some answers to this mystery.

The romance between Lydia and Travis is not necessarily the flowery, romantic type of love, but rather, the love that develops from friendship first. Neither character wants to marry. Lydia has trust issues. When she was a child, her father left her mother for another woman. And after traveling across the country, she finds her fiance married to another woman. Travis has seen few happily married couples in his life, especially not his parents. He doesn’t want to end up married and miserable. And he especially doesn’t want to see Lydia miserable.  Both characters develop as separate individuals in the novel, instead of just as a couple. As their love grows, they realize that love is true and strong enough to survive anything.

Ms. Cabot’s writing is exemplary. She smoothly intersperses history of the Texas Hill Country, the remaining animosity in a post-Civil War South, and the accurate descriptions of making candy, including how to test soft-ball stage of candy without a modern thermometer. I imagine there is some serious research behind this novel. I was, however, missing an emotional connection with the characters. I’m not necessarily talking about burning desire between the two main characters. I just didn’t click with Lydia and Travis. Aunt Bertha is the only character I really connected with. And I’m not sure what connecting with the town matriarch says about me, instead of the couple in love!

Come for the mystery, but stay for the characters. A Stolen Heart is worth reading.