Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Surrender the Heart by MaryLu Tyndall (Book Review)

Title: Surrender the Heart (Book 1 - Surrender to Destiny series)
Author: MaryLu Tyndall
Publisher: Barbour Publishing

About the Book: Marianne Denton feels like her fate has been sealed.  She is in a forced engagement to Noah Brenin, a man she has no feelings for and only bad memories of him antagonizing her as a child.  With her plain looks, and plump figure, she doesn't feel she has a lot of options - and she must marry in order to receive her inheritance.  This inheritance is all that her mother, baby sister and herself have left.  With her mother ailing, Marianne needs the money for her medication.  They have already let the entire staff go, and there really aren't any more corners left to cut.

Noah isn't thrilled with the engagement either and is bound and determined to break  it off.  He wants to force Marianne's hand in it so that she won't want to marry him.  Even though his father wants the inheritance money to further their business, Noah doesn't want to marry this plain woman.

After a brief appearance at the engagement party, Noah hurries out, not knowing that Marianne is following him through the streets back to his ship, the Fortune.  She boards his ship, gets lost in the hold, and gets knocked out when she is startled by a cat.  Upon her awakening she discovers that the ship has set sail and no one realizes she is on board.  Refusing to take her back to port, Noah pushes the ship onward, not believing Marianne when she tells him there is no one to care for her sick mother.  All he cares about is making a quick trip, unloading his cargo, and returning home to prove to his father that he is worthy of something.

Well, Marianne, stubborn woman that she is, decides to sabotage the ship in order to get Noah to take her home.  It isn't until they are pursued by a British warship that her treachery is discovered.  Both Noah and herself, as well as 2 others, are taken prisoner aboard the Undefeatable, the British warship.  On this warship they meet Daniel, a young boy who tells Marianne that she has been sent from God to rescue him.  That God told him this in a dream. Marianne had stopped trusting God when her father died and left them almost penniless.  She scoffs at the idea that she should have such a destiny.

My thoughts:  This was a great beginning to this new series.  I loved the scenario of 2 people really despising each other from childhood, only to be placed in such situations that they slowly begin to see the other through new eyes.  What will it take to get these two people to put their trust back in God and then to be able to trust in each other? I have been hit with the message a couple of times in the past weeks to "Be still, and know that I am God," and that message was in this book as well. To trust in Him, even without seeing the big picture, without knowing what may happen tomorrow.  I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next 2 books in the series, Surrender the Night and Surrender the Dawn.

To read the first chapter, please visit my earlier post on Surrender the Heart.

~I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my review from MaryLu Tyndall and Camy Tang.~


Surrender the Heart
Publisher/Publication Date: Barbour, Aug 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60260-165-9
367 pages

1 comment:

Aleksandra Nearing said...

This sounds like a book I would enjoy. Thanks for your review!

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