Song Stuck on the Brain: Everything's Okay by Chris Rice
MY TAKE:
Being a bit of a genealogy buff myself (check out the tabs across the top), I'm always intrigued by other people's family history. Rebecca DeMarino has done a fantastic job of not only tracking her family legacy back to the founding fathers of the USA (literally), but she's also woven that history, along with a few family legends, into a beautiful tapestry that shows a much bigger picture than the history books reveal.
Mary Langton marries for love, but that love requires a great deal of her. This isn't a modern day journey where you can pick up a phone and check in with the family, or hop a plane and visit the old country when you're especially homesick. Mary follows Barnabas to a New WORLD. That's a very good term for it - with a journey that kills many before they arrive, and takes many more before sturdy shelters can be built, it's nothing like home. But it's not just about being physically strong. Mary and the other women were strong in ways it's hard to imagine. In a time when you had no rights of your own and were expected to be seen and worked hard - but not heard, life was even harder.
I have a great deal of respect for both Barnabas and Mary and their families, I don't know that I could have done it. Then again, I'm sure many of them felt the same, yet they clung to their faith and the knowledge God had called them there for a purpose. It puts a whole new outlook for me on the idea "with God, all things are possible."
This novel was gripping and had me hooked til the very last, that's for "certe's"! If you enjoy historical romance, this is not to be missed.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Anglican Mary Langton longs to marry for love. Puritan Barnabas Horton is still in love with his deceased wife and needs only a mother for his two young sons. And yet these two very different people with very different expectations will take a leap of faith, wed, and then embark on a life-changing journey across the ocean to the Colonies. Along the way, each must learn to live in harmony, to wait on God, and to recognize true love where they least expect to find it.
This heartfelt tale of love and devotion is based on debut author Rebecca DeMarino's own ancestors, who came to Long Island in the mid-1600s to establish a life--and a legacy--in the New World.
If you'd like to read the first chapter of A Place in His Heart, go HERE.
Rebecca is hosting a Giveaway worth over $300.00 in prizes. There will be 8 winners! Scroll to the bottom of the post HERE to enter!!!!!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rebecca DeMarino was born in Pensacola, Florida, the daughter of a Navy pilot. Her mother made a home for the family of six all over the map, including Virginia, Nevada, California, Washington, and Guam, before her parents put down anchor on a ranch in Oregon.
As the wife of a young Air Force officer, married life brought more travel. She relied on her mother’s example of how to make a home anywhere. Her three beautiful daughters were born in Florida, Alaska and Nebraska.
Retired after sixteen years with a major airline, she manages to fulfill her love of wanderlust with frequent family or research trips.
Rebecca grew up listening to her mother’s family lore of a great-grandfather from generations ago. Barnabas Horton sailed from England in the 1600’s, to Long Island, N.Y., on a ship called The Swallow. In 1999, after she found Horton Point, L.I., on a map, Rebecca and her mother made the journey to see the lighthouse named after their ancestor.
The legend goes that Barnabas brought a slab of blue slate with him from England, and had the epitaph he wrote himself engraved on it. The blue slate still exists in the Old Cemetery in Southold, L.I., with the Bible verse, “He being dead, still speaketh.” Much information was found about Barnabas, but none of his wife, save a mention in his will.
Her mother passed away in 2005, but Rebecca returned to Southold many times, drawn by her Puritan roots and English heritage. Each time she wondered about her ninth great-grandmother, a young woman who married a widower with two young boys and then followed them for the wilds of Long Island, leaving behind her home and family. What were her dreams? Her motivations? Her fears?
Rebecca’s historical romance novel, A PLACE IN HIS HEART, debuts with Revell, a division of Baker Publishing House, in June of 2014.
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