To Win at Love - Book Reviews

To Win Her Heart by Karen Witemeyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I’ve been in love with blacksmiths for awhile now. I think it all started with Newsies.

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Then came Adam Black in Beyond the Highland Mist by Karen Marie Moning. Before my own creation of Joseph in the Dungeons and Dragons game we play.


Then there’s my whole obsession with running off to Gretna Green to get married by the blacksmith, but that’s a conversation for a different blog post.


There was conversation on Twitter focused on romances that feature blacksmiths. To Win Her Heart was one of the first ones to come up. I don’t normally jump at reading Christian Fiction; most times I end up reading them by accident.  The blurb sounded really interesting so I thought I would give it a chance.  I was really surprised with how much I liked it and it was all thanks to Levi, our blacksmith and it didn’t hurt that Eden is a librarian.


Levi is big, quite, and had a criminal past, but he’s got a pure heart and wants horribly to redeem himself.  Starting over in a new town he just wants to return to the trade his father taught him.  It seems that part of his new start is finding Eden and convincing her that he’s a good man and worthy of her love.


Eden is set that she won’t trust another man again.  She holds firm to her beliefs but is pushed to challenge them a number of times.  I think Karen Witemeyer handles these challenges in a real manner, she doesn’t write Eden as overly moral and so set in her ways that you want to reach into the book and shake her.  Eden is a character that others can reason with and I really like that about her.


I liked the setting, the town, and the supporting cast of characters.  I liked that the ‘search’ for religion wasn’t the big plot device to solve their problems, but it was integral to both Levi and Eden finding their happiness.

His Heart's Obsession by Alex Beecroft


My rating: 4 of 5 stars




[Received copy from NetGalley]


I don’t normally read a lot of his M/M Romances. Yet I saw this reviewed atThe Book Vixen and just had to read it. The first thing that caught my attention was the cover. I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but it really swayed me and the blurb sounded intriguing. I was hesitant because one of the things that bother me the most is the lack of romance; with the few that I have read they are both in bed within the first 10 pages. Not so with His Heart’s Obsession. Set in 1752, Robert Hughes cannot openly try to woo Hal Morgan so it’s more a covert battle and Alex wrote it beautifully.


Robert has loved Hal for five years but Hal is in love with William. William doesn’t really see Hal so both Hal and Robert are miserable since they can’t have the men they want. Robert sets out to show Hal how he feels and to prove to Hal that William doesn’t deserve his attention.


I loved that they didn’t jump right into bed and even more that it wasn’t about the physical nature of their relationship but about the emotional commitment. When I read that in the review it’s what made me jump over to NetGalley and request the book.






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