1755 is an exciting time in colonial York, Virginia. The coastal dwellings are making money from trade, with voyages taking many months. A HEART ADRIFT shows that separation can wreck a romance. Chocolatier like her late mother, Esmee Shaw is twenty-eight and not interested in dallying with men. Not since a French-Scottish Captain, Henri Lennox, paid attention to her and disappeared off to sea. That was ten years ago, and she has learned her lesson. I don’t know why no merchant would have suited her, but she only agrees to attend a ball to support her sister. Really, she’d rather be making chocolate. Esmee's sister Eliza is happily wed and expecting her first baby, but looking forward to the gaiety of a ball. She insists Esmee buy a new dress, but agrees to pay for it. Esmee just reinvests her takings in equipment for the chocolate shop. These are two close sisters, and Eliza, now Lady Drysdale, gives a fine model of the responsible wife. Returning to his purchased Indigo Island with its comfortable house and half-built lighthouse, in the Chesapeake Bay, Captain Henri Lennox decides to attend the social event of the season. He doesn’t know if Esmee is still single, but he won’t miss his chance if she will just dance with him. This detailed historical novel poses the question of what privateers and pirates were. The difference seems to be that the Crown sanctioned privateers, because they only attacked enemy shipping and paid tax. They were often ex-navy or recruited into the navy. Henri is just on the right side of shady dealings, and some frown on his deeds. He has freed African men aboard ship, who are at risk if they stand around on land. Slavery is still a main source of labour. At the same time, Henri is known to have a hundred slaves working at his plantation house, and this goes against the religion and principles of the Shaw family. This gentle romance by Laura Frantz demonstrates that no point of view is entirely right in such muddled times. If Henri is to win Esmee, something will need to change. The reader is wondering what that will be as Esmee longs for earlier days, flying a kite on the strand, and Henri accepts a dangerous mission against the French. A HEART ADRIFT may be adrift forever, or may come safely to shore. If you enjoy reading about chocolate making, sea stories and colonial times, this is a good long indulgence.
A Virginia chocolatier and a privateering sea captain collide once more after a failed love affair a decade before. Will a war and a cache of regrets keep them apart? Or will a new shared vision reunite them?
It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from which she's never quite recovered. But she longs to find something worthwhile to do with her life. Captain Henri Lennox has returned to port after a lengthy absence, intent on completing the lighthouse in the dangerous Chesapeake Bay, a dream he once shared with Esmée. But when the colonial government asks him to lead a secret naval expedition against the French, his future is plunged into uncertainty.
Will a war and a cache of regrets keep them apart, or can their shared vision and dedication to the colonial cause heal the wounds of the past? Bestselling and award-winning author Laura Frantz whisks you away to a time fraught with peril--on the sea and in the heart--in this redemptive, romantic story.
© 2003-2026