About the book: Caught in the middle of a massacre in Lawrence, Kansas, during the Civil War, Leah Donaldson, a twenty-year-old Mormon governess, must risk everything to save two children in her care—and she lives to pay dearly for the decision. Young Ethan Pace loves Leah and can hardly stay still as she is taken away by the enemy for refusing to reveal where he and his sister are hiding.
Five years later, Ethan desperately searches for her, trying to reconcile all that has happened and grappling with his feelings for her. Still idealizing Leah, he hopes she has survived and that he can help her get to Zion and her people. But after everything she's been through since they last met, will Leah overcome her regrets and allow love into her life? Will she come to see Ethan as the caring man he has become rather than the lovesick boy she once knew?
My review: I was amazed at just how quickly I was sucked into the story of this book!
I loved the way that Ethan is, you see everything that happens in this book through his eyes and I loved it! He's a 14 year-old boy living in Lawrence, Kansas. When his dad has to go away to war, he leaves a young Mormon girl, Leah Donaldson, in charge of Ethan and his younger sister Addie. I loved the way that Ethan sees Leah, pretty much falling in love with her from the very first moment he sees her. I think that his loving her makes it so he doesn't do the typical things teenagers would, things like rebelling against anything she asked him to do. Instead Ethan goes out of his way to protect her from anything that he can and he makes her life easier with his every action.
I loved Leah's character too. I loved the way she keeps her integrity intact to be able to join the Saints in Zion someday. And I love the way that her actions have a profound effect on Ethan and his friends, Bobby and Toe Jam. An even bigger effect than any of them ever plans on. I also love the way she sacrifices herself in order to protect these young people.
I love the plot of this one. I had never heard of what happened in Lawrence during the Civil War and the story really touched me, and left me wondering just how that would have been for the people who really lived there and had those horrible things happen to them.
This is a great book, the plot will leave you not wanting to put the book down and wanting more of the story when you do finish!
I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
About the author: Lynne Larson is an award-winning teacher and writer with a special interest in western history, particularly as It relates to women. Several of her stories, essays, and articles have appeared in regional magazines, as well as in Latter-day Saint publications.
Her novel, In the Shadow of an Angel, grew from her great regard for the pioneers who put the statue of Moroni on the temple long ago, never realizing the changes that would come as the golden figure watched over their Zion for the next one hundred years. Nor could those early builders fully imagine the generations coming after them, for whom the statue would be a beacon and a guide, millions of people, each with a life to live and a story to tell, and all connected by the angel on the spire
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Labels: Covenant Communications, LDS Historical Fiction, Lynne Larson
About the book: Caught in the middle of a massacre in Lawrence, Kansas, during the Civil War, Leah Donaldson, a twenty-year-old Mormon governess, must risk everything to save two children in her care—and she lives to pay dearly for the decision. Young Ethan Pace loves Leah and can hardly stay still as she is taken away by the enemy for refusing to reveal where he and his sister are hiding.