This post-Civil War romance is the signature Shelley Shepard Gray as I love her - an interesting heroine, complex plot, good romance and a hot man (or men). This may sound shallow, but what more do you need in the romantic read than interesting plot and some good old chemistry? Oh yes, you might like a good story and authentic struggles. And here you will get all of this.

Miranda is a shunned war widow in Galveston - her fellow citizens think that her late husband was a traitor and they treat her with contempt and worse. Yet the help is on the way - as her husbands's comrades have once promised to look after each other after the war - and this goes for their friend's widow, too. Enter Robert Truax, former Second Lieutenant and self-made officer, who, coming from poor background, has made something of himself. And he is not going to take that kind of treatment of a brave co-soldier's lady lightly. He will save this woman and go. Because he is no match for a true lady.

Ahem, dear Robert, here is where you are wrong. Yet your questions and Miranda's true burden make for a deeper story within this very swashbuckling novel.

This is a true romantic story, which is both a totally clean read and a story with chemistry well-used. It also has much heart (including hearts broken). And it simply works. There is only a few within a Christian historical romance realm who can do that - and Ms Gray definitely can.

Love Soldiers On!!

The Loyal Heart is another sweet, love-filled story of a second-chance romance. This is the first book from Shelley that I read which was not an Amish Love Story.

Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Loyal Heart was a book that transported me to an era bygone. A young widow, an officer friend of her dead husband; a town full of distrustful people and a mother-in-law who wants her gone for good.

Miranda is trying to live a respectable life with the meager resources she has to get by. Her emotional state is distraught and all seems lost. Pining away for her husband and withering away due to the insults heaped upon her by the town folk, she is ready to give up.

Robert sees the beauty, kindness, and strength in her that she cannot see. He is smitten by her simplicity and grit even though she doesn’t see it. He arrives at the right moment and supports her as he had promised her dying husband.

The Loyal Heart is a bittersweet book that is not just about love but of acceptance, second chances and that death is a constant in life. The death of her husband, Phillip Markham is a blow that almost kills Miranda but she struggles to survive so she can clean her reputation and that of her husband.

The Loyal Heart has a bit of suspense when she is kidnapped and Robert is looking for her. The ending is fast, and the truth prevails. She survives as does her reputation, all her detractors fail, but the fun was in the journey. The author has connected the story with a bit of intrigue, suspense, haters, and the innocence of love.

The Loyal Heart is another book by Shelley that showcased the power of love so perfectly.

In a time when many young men lost their lives and left widows and children to fight to make their way in a world that didn’t see them as individuals – Robert made a promise to his comrades, if anything were to happen to any of them they would take care of that person’s family. Robert would have never have known how quickly that this would come into play when his friend Phillip dies in captivity.

Phillip’s love of his life, Miranda, has been left alone to transfer their home into a lodging and suffers from being an outcast as Phillip has been marked a traitor. Robert is livid at the thought of his friend being named a traitor but can not because of the secret nature of Phillip’s role during the war. This is when a great mystery develops as Robert begins to try to uncover who is destroying Phillip’s name and who is the root cause of Miranda’s pain. Every time I thought that I knew who could be the culprit for spreading such awful lies, a new twist is added and I realize I am wrong.

As Robert tries to solve the mystery, he quickly falls for the lovely Miranda as he struggles to understand his loyalty to his friend who has passed away and this lonely young woman. Both characters are perfect for each other but struggle through their internal war with themselves with the notion is this relationship okay to develop? I completely understood their struggle but felt that Phillip would have been happy to know that the two people he loved the most would have found happiness and love in each other.

A fantastic novel from start to finish – I did not want to put this one down! It was well written, developed at a great pace and always kept you guessing at what/who is the culprit for hurting Phillip’s name and Miranda’s life. A definite must read!

by Andrea Renee Cox

I really wanted to like this book, but it annoyed me from beginning to end. There were major inconsistencies, weak and too-convenient backgrounds, men who used their positions of authority as an excuse to be rude and controlling, a couple of random flashbacks that were not grounded in the previous scene, an expletive, and lewd talk. The thing that bothered me the most was the main theme of the story. While being aware of mental health and attempting to fix it is a current-day topic, it was not, as far as I'm aware, something that was broadly known back in the Civil War days. From everything I've learned about that time period, folks with mental health issues were simply sent to asylums and forgotten. This definitely pulled me from the story, because it has been in my lifetime that the mental health issues have come to the forefront of societal awareness. This theme was very out of place for the book's era.


I receive complimentary books from publishers, publicists, authors, and sites like Netgalley, Litfuse Publicity Group, and Blogging for Books. They do not require me to write positive reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Quite an interesting story primarily set in the post-Civil War era in Galveston, Texas with flashbacks to events at the Confederate States of America Officer’s POW Camp on Johnson’s Island, Ohio. I struggle with much that happened during that period of our nation’s history but found this to be a fascinating story about the problems faced by a young widow whose husband had died in that prison camp. As with all of life and particularly in war, many unscrupulous people do not hesitate trying to take advantage of those most affected by the war. Widow Miranda Markham was one who found herself at the mercy of circumstances beyond her control with efforts by her deceased husband’s family to take away her home and rumors being spread throughout the city that her husband had been a turncoat. She was almost at her wit’s end until Lt. Robert Truax appeared at her door. He had served with her husband and been with him just prior to his death from gangrene in the POW Camp. The faith and hope of the main characters helps them deal with some very difficult situations without being in-your-face about it. If you enjoy suspense, action, romance, and solid story-telling, I recommend the book to you. It is worth the time it takes to read it. I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.