Carrie Fancett Pagels Reviews Audiobook of Within My Heart by Tamera Alexander

Within My Heart

Within My Heart
by Tamera Alexander
Bethany House
(Oasis Audio, 2010)

Disability friendliness: Within My Heart is available in audio version, paperback, ebook, and large print. I listened to this book on audio.

Wow!  That one word could sum up my reaction to reading this book, both as a reader and as a writer.  Oftentimes I am pulled out of a book by craft issues.  I was this time, too, but not because of bad craft but because I kept pausing and thinking – wow, that is how it should be done. 

Great Craft in this Book

How subplots can be developed and managed, how ancillary characters bring richness to the plot, how a prologue can give an amazing twist, how to keep the tension going between the H/H, how to incorporate believable hooks, how to prepare the emotional reader (moi!) for the death of a significant character, how to put the reader into story world without “telling” them about it, and how to leave the reader with a satisfying experience.

While I have heard, for years in ACFW how great Tamera Alexander’s stories were, none were in the time frame of my writing. And I hadn’t “met” her in any of my circles. But our Dutch reviewer, Marian Baay, nudged me and my critique partner, Kim Taylor, who is a big fan of Tamera’s books. 

This is a story where when I was done listening I would have stood atop a chair and clapped, shouting “Brava!”

I didn’t even tell you what the book is about! Our heroine is a widower with two boys and is trying to make a go of her ranch despite one calamity after another. The hero is a newcomer physician in town.  Her father was a doctor (lots of great backstory there but dropped in judiciously) and Rachel Boyd (cute choice of name – two boys, boyed, lol!) had been performing medical work before Rand Brookston arrives in town.  That is the set up.  And given how I am prone to spoiling a story for the reader, I will stop there and tell you  - GO LISTEN to this book!

The narrator is fabulous for this amazingly crafted story. Loved it!

Brava, Tamera!

Here is my EXPANDED Audiobook Review of Tamera Alexanders’s if you care to read it!  SPOILER ALERT!!!

I listened to this as an Audible.com download. I have a Platinum membership with them.  The narrator was perfect for this book. She really could not have done the heroine any more justice and she did great with the hero, the heroine’s sons, and the minor characters. No easy feat!

The prologue sets up a spooky mystery that leaves a question hanging in the air – who is the dead man?  It is not until you are about a third to halfway through the book when the prologue begins to make sense.  I have never read a Tamera Alexander book before.  Something she does that I don’t see as often as I would like, is weaving other subplot threads through her story.  This is something I do, too, in my own writing but I see far too many books with a simple straight forward plot and little additional subplots or threads and themes.  She tied them up beautifully at the end, too, which I always appreciate.

The heroine is a widower with two sons and is having a tough go of things. Her father was a physician and she served as a medical practitioner until the new physician came to town.  It is cute how it is clear right from the beginning that the doctor has fallen for the pretty widow but she still hasn’t recovered from the loss of her husband, who died several years earlier.

 

Great listen, I will probably listen to this again now that I realize what the prologue was all about.  I highly recommend this Tamera Alexander book to anyone who enjoys Christian historical romance.

GIVEAWAYS: Tamera is also doing a giveaway for us this week in addition to our giveaways of a book of choice plus one Tamera Alexander paperback that we are giving away ourselves--grand total of THREE giveaways this week. Leave a comment and your email to be entered in the contest. *International winners ebook only.