"Love's Fortune" by Laura Frantz

Love's Fortune

by 

Laura Frantz

Sheltered since birth at her Kentucky home, Rowena Ballantyne has heard only whispered rumors of her grandfather Silas's vast fortune and grand manor in Pennsylvania. When her father receives a rare letter summoning him to New Hope, Rowena makes the journey with him and quickly finds herself in a whole new world--filled with family members she's never met, dances she's never learned, and a new side to the father she thought she knew. As she struggles to fit in during their extended stay, she finds a friend in James Sackett, the most valued steamship pilot of the Ballantynes' shipping line. Even with his help, Rowena feels she may never be comfortable in high society. Will she go her own way . . . to her peril?

MY REVIEW:
Laura Frantz has done it again. Her historical romances never fail me. She delves into times and places that I don't normally venture into and immerses me into settings that feel real, story lines that I don't want to walk away from and characters that I wish were real. Isn't that the point of reading historical fiction?

In Love's Fortune we are entering Book #3 of a brilliant trilogy and I do recommend reading these 3 in order just so you can understand the generations involved in this family and the background leading to Rowena's story. Each book is focused around a young lady from a different generation. So in book #1, Love's Reckoning it was Rowena's grandma, in book #2, Love's Awakening it was Rowena's aunt and in book #3 it is Rowena herself but we get the privilege of having all of the generations appearing in and being an important part of her story. 

Do not think that Laura's historical romance are full of sappy love stories and nothing of much interest - you would be sooooo wrong! She has a way of building suspense and keeping me on the edge of my seat even when you wouldn't think it was possible and her twists and turns keep me from being able to guess at the intricacies of her story lines... I can usually predict who the heroine will end up with but how they are going to get there is beyond me. In this one I loved meeting Rowena (Wren) and getting to revisit the characters already developed in previous books. James Sackett, steamship pilot and hero, is fantastic and a hero to fall in love with. There are many subplots riding along with the main story that kept me turning pages as fast as I could and there was one downside to this book... I knew it was book #3 and there would be no more following. I almost cried at the end saying good-bye to these characters. The only good thing about this series ending is that I can't wait to see where Laura Frantz takes me next!