Miss Whitaker Opens Her Heart

by Jennifer Moore

[sstaley]

Once again, Author Jennifer Moore has delivered another book that is outside the box of the typical Regency Romance that seems to be written these days. This book takes place in Australia, New Wales to be specific in the early 1800's. Sarah Whitaker comes to New Wales as a young girl to live with her father only to find out he has been murdered. Sarah and her aunt decide to stay and keep the farm and the sheep. Sarah becomes very adept and successful at what she does but harbors a great dislike for fellow ranchers and felons in her employ and the dishonesty these groups of people have shown in New Wales. She also hates the native people,the Aborigines, who she believes were responsible for the murder of her father and is very prejudiced against them.

Daniel Burton soon comes into her life. He is a convicted felon but is lucky to have money from his uncle to buy land and freedom to start anew in New Wales without anyone knowing about his past. Daniel buys the land next to Sarah, which puts them off to a bad start since Sarah wanted that land. It is a slow process, but step by step Daniel proves to be a loyal and trusted friend to Sarah.

Without going into too many details, since it would absolutely ruin the entire book for future readers, Sarah's heart slowly opens and she starts learning to trust people that she'd vowed she'd never do. Daniel has a big hand in helping Sarah change.This was such a lovely thing to read as they slowly became closer through varied events happening. I quite liked their interactions. Sarah is so tough on the outside and it was fun to watch how Daniel chipped away at the outer shell and broke through to the loving soul that was inside of Sarah. The more she opened up, the more I liked the character. I quite understood why Sarah acted the way she did because she'd experienced so many losses in her life. It was very satisfying in the end to see how love freely given can truly change someone's heart and how forgiving others can mend one's soul too.

This sweet tale of romance, filled with some angst and tense moments, gets 4 stars from me.