It's a rare author who can make a truly good, selfless, godly and religious man into an interesting and sexy hero -- one whose beliefs don't make him insufferable when you don't necessarily share them as a reader. Who can create the perfect foil for this kind of hero in a woman who is a cynical, bitter, depressed atheist yearning, whether she knows it or not, for friendship, love, and community. Who is capable of writing a villain who isn't just a roadblock to the hero and heroine's happily ever after, but a believable, nuanced, and even heartbreaking character in his own right, in spite of the unlikeable and even wicked things he does. Who can bring an entire village of secondary characters to life, giving all the people we meet personalities and lives of their own, even if we're only seeing those lives in brief snatches. Patricia Gaffney is good. Very, very good. I love her lyrical, evocative writing style and found myself highlighting passage after passage in my Kindle.

There were things I wasn't crazy about. The middle of the novel loses a little steam as the conflict veers into a moral conundrum for the hero that might be a little difficult for most modern readers to relate to. There's also a big plot twist about 3/4 of the way through the book that seemed much too convenient, plot-wise, in terms of the timing -- though I forgave it when it led to an increase in the angst and tension of the story and to some of my favorite sections of the book. Some of the things that happened toward the end of the novel were gut-wrenching and so emotional. I teared up several times before the story reached its conclusion.

I feel like I'm being super vague. Here, read this for more details, it says a lot of the things I didn't. I can see why this book is considered a historical romance classic -- it's pretty wonderful. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in the Wyckerley trilogy.