Review: The Heart Answers
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 26, 2014
After her father's death, Jessica is forced to accept that their circumstances have changed and she may have to make some changes to herself, and her outlook on life, to fit into her new surroundings. I was really looking forward to this book, because I'm always intrigued by a villain's redemption, but sadly I have to say that this is my least favorite book of the series so far. Jessica was so thoroughly unlikable in the first two books, that I was a bit skeptical about seeing her redeemed, but the series of events that led to the changes in her, made her transformation very believable, I thought, and by the end I was truly impressed. My problem is that Clay was really difficult to like. For a minister, the man was a real piece of work—judgmental, self-righteous, and inflexible. The way he sentenced Jessica to back-breaking labor without batting an eye or any inconvenience to himself, then continued to find fault with her, with little to no compassion, no matter how hard she tried, was hard for me to see past—then continued to harp on her about "getting saved" (you got plenty of work to do on yourself buddy). Watching Jessica's transformation was what carried me through this story, and I'm not really sure why she wanted Clay (other than he was the ultimate challenge), but she did, so I'm glad things worked out for her in the end.  The next and last installment in this series is To Love a Stranger, about Jessica's brother, Jasper, and his mail-order bride.