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Title: By Fate's Design
ISBN: 0312959265
Author:
Delia Parr
Publicate Date: 1996-09-15
Publish: 1996-09-15
List Price: $5.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $1.44
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
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| Customer Review: |
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1: More like 2 1/2 stars. An uneven read
From the back cover:
She lived in a peaceful, sheltered world...until a dangerous stranger awakened the fire in her soul.
For most of her life JoHannah Sims has lived among the gentle Shakers and wants nothing more than to remain with them. But her dreams are shattered when her guardian takes her from the community with the intention of selling her as a wife to the highest bidder. Sent to a neutral household to await this horrendous sentence, JoHannah finds her faith tested in ways she never imagined by handsome, worldy Michael Lawne.
From the moment he sees her, Michael knows he must have this untouchable beauty. He knows full well how to tempt JoHannah, how to make her want him and his world. But the tables are turned when she begins to tempt his spirit, his soul, and especially his heart, as no woman has ever done before. Chance brought two people from different worlds together. But will the hand of fate allow this forbidden love to survive?
And my review:
I was drawn to this book because it deals with the life of the Shakers, a mostly forgotten people in American history. They were a people who lived in chaste community, as brothers and sisters, believing that all pleasures of the flesh are sinful and that marriage is evil. A bit extreme, but very interesting. In my 13+ years of reading romance, I've only every come across one other book that dealt with the Shakers, and that was Karen Harper's CIRCLE OF GOLD.
Many parts of BY FATE'S DESIGN were good. The author had obviously done her research, and the life of the Shakers was well depicted without making me feel like I was reading a history textbook. This is very difficult to do, and I applaud the author for her efforts. However, there were some instances of very awkward writing. Example: "Eyes downcast, she [JoHanna] wiped a small smudge of buttery grease from her knife onto the slice of bread on the table next to her soup bowl relegated for that purpose and took a serving of plum sauce which she spread on a heel of crusty pumpernickel bread." Whew! Take about your run-on sentences! I read that one ten times and still got lost in the middle of it. Oh well.
My big problem was with the characters. The heroine was well fleshed out, but the hero wasn't. He wanted to marry JoHannah (almost instantly), but I didn't really feel like cheering him on. He had a bit of the Neanderthal "I want you, so I'm going to have you" attitude, which made it difficult to like him. Not that he forced himself on the heroine, but his refusal to even consider that she might not want to marry him at all was very grating. What if she wanted to be free of the Shakers and still not marry him? It never even entered his mind, and if he really loved JoHannah, it should have!
The villian was also very one-dimensional. I kept expecting him to throw back his head and laugh "Mwah-hah-hah-hah!" like those bad actors in melodramatic plays. I also felt that this story didn't really need a villian. JoHannah's struggle to find where she belongs (with the Shakers or in the world as Michael's wife) was enough of a conflict to sustain the book, in my opinion. I felt like the villian part could have been taken right out. The book wouldn't have suffered--in fact, it would have been better.
The heroine's journey was well-written...at first. I really felt her struggle and cheered for her. But after a certain point, she ran into a wall and didn't really progress from there. I felt that after she realized that all people (including innocent babies) are the product of conjugal love, and therefore marriage cannot be evil, she should have really changed. Instead, she just reverted back to her old self. What should have been an epiphany instead became a stumbling block as the heroine started to sound like a broken record.
After such a promising beginning, all my interest in the book fizzled out by the time I reached the last 100 pages. I was able to skip to the end without really feeling like I'd missed anything. Because of this, I would not recommend BY FATE'S DESIGN. If you're still determined to read it, borrow it from the library.
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2: Shaker
I didn't know much about the Shakers when I read this book, but I got some wonderful insights that fostered a deep respect and a better understanding of the way things were then. Ms. Parr does a wonderful job not only of telling a good story but of making history come alive!
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