Genre: Pirate Romance
You’ll like this if you like: Poetic, Vivid Description, Stories of Hope and Healing, Passionate, Sweet Romance, Unforgettable Characters, or Engaging Plots that Keep You on Your Toes.
Cleanliness: Charity, the heroine, posses as Elias’s wife during their first voyage, but aside from sleeping in the room together, nothing happens between them. And to get out of another sticky situation, Elias claims that Charity is his wife, so they spend that night in a hammock together, but once more, nothing happens. I suppose I should warn you that they… kiss. 😉 This is a Christian novel, so the romance is completely clean, according to my standards.
Hero Type: Virtuous Hero
The book begins with Charity shooting her abusive husband, Lord Villemont (even his name sounds evil), so she can save her unborn child. She flees soon after, narrowly escaping the late Lord Villemont’s brother, Charles, who pursues her all the way to the colonies. When she spots Charles sailing toward her, she jumps off of the ship and tries to swim to shore, only to be rescued by a man who thought she was drowning. In a sudden turn of events, she posses as her rescuer’s wife to secure passage aboard a ship and escape the men hunting her down.
Mary Lu Tyndall would have to be one of my top 10 favorite authors. I would buy any of her new books without even glancing at the synopsis. Charity’s Cross is right up there with The Raven Saint and The Reckoning. As I read the first scene where Charity and Elias meet, I knew this would be a good story. Elias is a missionary, strong, compassionate, and patient—exactly what Charity needs after being abused and nearly broken by Lord Villemont. The only problem is that he despises liars… But I’ll let you read the book to find out what happens 😉 And Mary Lu Tyndall’s writing is absolutely gorgeous.
“Tonight, with barely a sliver of moon
and the black sky dusted with glittering stars,
the sea looked like a giant pool of ink,
frosted in dribbles of foamy milk.”
Isn’t that just beautiful? Sometimes, her descriptions of the sea do seem a bit repetitious, but for the most part they’re vivid and awe-inspiring. From the very beginning, you know that Charity will slowly come to trust Elias and that they’ll probably live happily ever after, but the author throws in a few twists, making this book one you won’t be able to put down. And… (drum roll) it’s on Kindle Unlimited! 🙂
According to Jeff Gerke, there are two approaches to writing: the invisible novelist and painted paragraphs. Mary Lu Tyndall’s pirate romances seem to fall more into the painted paragraphs category. Which approach do you prefer? Do you use a different approach when you’re writing? And what do you think about Charity’s Cross? Does it sound like something you’d be interested in?