Review: Love's Pursuit by Siri Mitchell
It’s funny, I went to Boston last month and when I got back the first two books I read were set in Massachusetts. It was a complete and total coincidence; they just happened to be the top books on my to-be-reviewed pile.
Love’s Pursuit
by Siri Mitchell
Product Description
In the small Puritan community of Stoneybrooke, Massachusetts, Susannah Phillips stands out both for her character and beauty. She wants only a simple life but soon finds herself pursued by the town's wealthiest bachelor and by a roguish military captain sent to protect them. One is not what he seems and one is more than he seems.
In trying to discover true love's path, Susannah is helped by the most unlikely of allies, a wounded woman who lives invisible and ignored in their town. As the depth, passion, and sacrifice of love is revealed to Susannah, she begins to question the rules and regulations of her childhood faith. In a community where grace is unknown, what price will she pay for embracing love?
Love’s Pursuit opens with two sisters picking blueberries and goofing off together. It’s a playful, innocent moment that helps immediately bring the reader into the Puritan world of Susannah Phillips. Their conversations sound natural enough in their 17th century world without becoming difficult for our modern ears to ‘hear’. With only a few paragraphs, Siri Mitchell paints a very vivid picture of the world her characters inhabit.
I also have to admit that it’s nice to read a book with Puritan characters that doesn’t involve a witch hunt. Lately it seems like every time I pick up a book of fiction set in this time period, in this part of the world, there’s a witch involved. There’s nothing wrong with that, because it’s an exciting and interesting part of American history, but I can admire a novel that strives to create historical fiction without relying on that particular element.
One of the things I liked best about this novel I can’t really talk about, because doing so would quite ruin the ending. But I think it is fair to say that when one reads a romantic piece of historical fiction, there is an expectation that the plot will be resolved a certain way. I was quite glad that Mitchell deviated from this course, and did something quite unexpected with her characters and their tangled relationships. I totally didn’t see it coming.
There were two narrators to the story. Susannah Phillips is the center of attention as she struggles to understand her heart and the motives of her suitors, but the story is also told through the eyes of Small-hope, a married woman who sees the dark side of the men pursuing Susannah, thanks to her troubled past,. In the first few chapters it’s very confusing when the narrative jumps between Susannah and Small-hope; even after I had gotten used to their voices I never found myself warming to Small-hope. She’s important to the story, so her character has to be in the book, but I found myself wishing that the story had been told strictly from Susannah’s view, because Small-hope’s self-loathing and cringing got annoying after a while.
I did not find Love’s Pursuit to be Siri Mitchell’s strongest novel, largely because of Small-hope’s narration, but it’s a good summer read.
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