"A house in need of a family, a girl in need of a home"
Reviewed by Clare O'Beara
Posted June 4, 2020
Inspirational | Women's Fiction | Women's Fiction Southern
I found this gently written women’s fiction tale growing on me as I read. Macey and Ben Samuelson are a married couple living in a handsome house which takes a lot of maintenance, on Tybee Island, Georgia. Ben runs a building firm and Macey has to call in sick to her physician assistant job due to an unhappy event. She and Ben want so much to have children, but it seems that’s not going to happen. PROMISES OF THE HEART weaves the story of two other women into theirs.
Harper Wheaton is a determined young lady who has been in and out of foster care. Her current home is with her social welfare caseworker, Cora Grant. Harper is orphaned and Cora would love to keep her with her own kids, but she doesn’t think that would be allowed, because Harper is white. All Cora can do is give the girl the best upbringing she can, in the circumstances; though a ten-year-old can be trying at times.
Macey is determined not to adopt, because it would be giving up on her and Ben’s dream. When she sees a blonde Labrador named Keeper in need of a home and learns that the shelter can’t get him adopted just because he has three legs, she makes up her mind to take him, even if it means talking Ben around. A lady can be pretty persuasive. From this small step, the story grows, as Macey opens her heart and mind to other possibilities.
I got really absorbed by the characters after a few chapters. To start with we get a few flashbacks about Ben and Macey, which confuse the story a bit as we are still getting a new character in each chapter. Once that’s out of the way the story runs smoothly. Be prepared for medical details and know that they are counterbalanced by positive thinking and plenty of welcoming and caring hearts. Cora is perhaps the best character, as so often, the social worker is an understated or uncaring participant in an orphan’s story. Cora couldn’t have done more.
Nan Rossiter has written a contemporary romance about a couple very much in love but going through a difficult time. She sweetens her tale with sisterhood and complicates it with generation gaps. PROMISES OF THE HEART will suit women and men who care about others and want life to work out – somehow. Highly recommended.
SUMMARY
The first novel in a new series from bestselling author Nan Rossiter tells the moving story of a couple struggling to start a family and the young foster girl with a heart condition who changes their lives forever.
“A multi-leveled, beautifully written story that will glow in readers’ hearts long after the last page is turned.”—Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author
Can the course that they’ve set for the future handle a slight detour...?
Macey and Ben Samuelson have much to be thankful for: great friends, a beautiful—if high-maintenance—Victorian house on idyllic Tybee Island, and a rock-solid marriage. The only thing missing is what they want the most. After her fifth miscarriage in six years, Macey worries that the family they’ve always dreamed of might be out of reach. Her sister suggests adoption, but Macey and Ben aren’t interested in pursuing that path...until a three-legged Golden Retriever named Keeper wags his way into their home and their hearts.
Harper Wheaton just got kicked out of another foster home and it won’t be the last if she keeps losing her temper. She’s not sure why she gets mad; maybe because no family seems to want a nine-year-old girl with a heart condition. She loves her social worker, Cora, but knows that staying with her forever isn’t an option. Will she ever find a family to call her own?
As a physician’s assistant, Macey meets lots of kids. Harper Wheaton’s a tough one, but Macey knows the little girl has already struggled more than most. It gets Macey and Ben to thinking about all the children who need homes. Then Harper goes missing, and one thing is suddenly crystal clear: life is complicated—but love doesn’t have to be.
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