My Favorite Fifteen Books of 2019

2019 Fiction Favorites

Lady of a Thousand Treasures, by Sandra Byrd

How this didn’t win the Christy Award is beyond me. Though, to be fair, I didn’t read the winner. But still, Byrd is an incredible character author. The brief summary: With Miss Eleanor Sheffield’s father’s death and her uncle’s decline into dementia, the family antiquities business is at risk. His heir’s character appears sketchy, but Eleanor can’t forget that he once loved her, and she him. How will she make a fair judgment?

Sons of Blackbird Mountain, by Joanne Bischof

This moving historical romance pits brother against brother as they pursue the same woman. Aven, a new widow, moves across the ocean to join her late husband’s relatives’ home, only to find that the one woman, the housekeeper, has died. Two of the brothers, one of them a deaf-mute, are fascinated with her, but Aven is wary. Her faith plays a major role in how the brothers resolve their rivalry, and why Aven chooses between them. Bischof includes beautiful scenery and historic detail, as well as engaging, growing characters.

With This Pledge, by Tamera Alexander

Civil War historical romance: From the pages of history and the personal accounts of those who endured the Battle of Franklin, Tamera Alexander weaves the real-life love letters between Captain Roland Ward Jones and Miss Elizabeth Clouston into a story of unlikely romance first kindled amid the shadows of war.

This historical novel is a standalone, though it can be read as part of Tamera Alexander’s series, the Carnton Novels.

A Bound Heart, by Laura Frantz

Scotland Forever! What can I say—the setting drew me in. But the characters kept me there.

Though Magnus MacLeish and Lark MacDougall grew up on the same castle grounds, Magnus is now laird of the great house and the Isle of Kerrera. Lark is but the keeper of his bees and the woman he is hoping will provide a tincture that might help his ailing wife conceive and bear him an heir. But when his wife dies suddenly, Magnus and Lark find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of accusations, expelled from their beloved island, and sold as indentured servants across the Atlantic. Yet even when all hope seems dashed against the rocky coastline of the Virginia colony, it may be that in this New World the two of them could make a new beginning—together.

Laura Frantz’s prose sparkles with authenticity and deep feeling as she digs into her own family history to share this breathless tale of love, exile, and courage in Colonial America.