The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter - Lawana Blackwell

Victorian fiction written by a modern hand tends to go one of two ways. When it's good, it's very, very good, and when it's bad, it's VERY, VERY bad. Lawana Blackwell falls on the good side. The follow-up novel to The Widow of Larkspur Inn, The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter picks up just weeks after the first book ends.

Newly engaged couple Julia Hollis and Vicar Andrew Phelps are busy planning their wedding, and dealing with the increasing demands of their rapidly-growing children. Andrew's daughter Elizabeth, whose heart was broken by a young rogue in Cambridge just months earlier, is slowly healing from the hurt and preparing to become engaged to another, more respectable man. Julia's eldest son Philip is on his way to boarding school.

Just as life seems settled, Jonathan Raleigh, the rogue from Cambridge, arrives in Gresham, a redeemed and reformed man, determined to win back Elizabeth's heart. He takes a job teaching the boisterous grammar school, a position to which he is ill-qualified, but it allows him to remain in Gresham. Both Andrew and Elizabeth must come to terms with their own anger, hurt, and unforgiveness. Julia, on the other hand, struggles to let go of her eldest son, whose infrequent letters from boarding school do not tell the truth of the cruelty he is experiencing there.

In the meantime, the community of Gresham is no less active than the Phelps and Hollis families. Seth Langford, recently acquitted and released from prison, arrives in Gresham with his impulsively adopted son Thomas, desiring nothing more than a quiet place to make a life for himself and Thomas. He's unfortunately chosen a home next to the town n'er-do-wells, the Sanders family. He's determined to avoild them, until Mercy Sanders falls in love with him, but must embark on an unusual and complicated plot to win his heart.

Where The Widow of Larkspur Inn focused on trusting the Lord for His care, The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter focuses on forgiveness. Andrew and Elizabeth must forgive Jonathan. Jonathan must come to understand what it means to be forgiven. Seth Langford must forgive those who wronged him, and learn to trust the people God has placed in his path. Even Philip, who is young, is faced with a moment of forgiveness versus satisfaction.

The citizens of Gresham are every bit as colourful and delightful as they were in the first novel, and well worth visiting from time to time. For a lover of Victorian-era stories, this is highly recommended.