Those of you who know me will find it highly unusual to learn I just finished The Lady's Mine by Francine Rivers. "Why?" you ask. The story begins in the year 1875 putting the story far back of my preferred contemporary reading tastes. Generally speaking, I do not read historical novels, but leave it to Francine Rivers to capture me first with the title of this book followed by the eventual introduction to Matthias Beck in Chapter 1.
Needless to say, the prim and proper Bostonian Kathryn Walsh, who's been effectively banished from her home by her step-father, who she refers to as "the judge", arrives in the rough and tumble mining town of Calvada, California, to collect her inheritance from an uncle she's never met.
Red-headed with piercing green eyes, she packs a little dynamite in her personality which inevitably explodes her into trouble's front door - and usually once she's entered, she finds no convenient exit.
Every man in the town is looking for a wife and figures the beautiful Kathryn Walsh would do nicely. Her staunch denial of ever wanting to marry dissuades all but two of the men in town. Of the two, only one of them makes her heart accelerate and the rush of heat flood her bloodstream - much to her consternation.
When Kathryn fights all the battles for acceptance and views the depressing hardships women face in this era of being treated as brainless, powerless, inferior servants to men, she works hard to make a difference in the town by using the printing press her uncle left her, continuing his legacy in the newspaper he called "The Voice".
Visiting her uncle's grave, she observes the local madam from one of the brothels weeping at his marker and wonders how their lives had touched.
There are innumerable other events in this story of overhauling a sordid and dangerous mining town, but at its core The Lady's Mine is a love story filled with hardcore obstacles, lots of resistance, heart-wrenching revelations, life-changing events both good and tragic, and all things in between. There are plenty of laughs, possible tears, and a few characters to make you fighting mad.
From Redeeming Love to The Masterpiece to The Lady's Mine (and several more novels in between), Francine Rivers portrays men as gentlemen or volatile, smitten or possessive, protective or dangerous. Women are depicted as innocent or wicked, nurturing or needy, competent or perilous. The heroes are real men full of desire, discovering love in the process. The heroines inevitably admit that those real men are irresistibly attractive and that as hard as loving them might be in the beginning, it's what they want in the end.
The Lady's Mine is a fun read portraying serious issues within a tempestuous love story where a compassionate and spunky young woman resists for as long as she can the terribly attractive and honorable in his heart man who pursues her.
Father, you've given Francine such incredible gifts, so many meaningful and anointed stories. May you continue to bless her writing and provide all she needs to do it as she honors you with her words. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.