RE:View | Beyond the Valley by Rita Gerlach

Time for a little review for the day. I just finished this delightful novel a few days ago and would love to share a bit about it. You will definitely want to get a copy for yourself (click here) and make sure to check out the rest of the books in The Daughters of the Potomac Series.

About Rita....
(taken from her Amazon page)

Rita Gerlach lives with her husband and two sons in a historical town nestled along the Catoctin Mountains, amid Civil War battlefields and Revolutionary War outposts in central Maryland. She was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in a large family in the Maryland suburbs.

"Romantic historical fiction that has an inspirational bent, is one way people can escape the cares of life and be transported back to a time of raw courage and ideal love," she says. "The goal of my writing is to give readers a respite from a stressful world..."

In many of her stories, she writes about the struggles endured by early colonists, with a sprinkling of both American and English history. Her genre - Inspirational Historical Romance / Drama.

Visit Rita's website at http://ritagerlach.blogspot.com/

Her Blog 'Inspire' http://inspire-writer.blogspot.com/

Beyond the Valley

Beyond the Valley is the third book in The Daughters of the Potomac Series by Rita Gerlach. I'll be honest and say I wasn't sure what to expect - not because of the book itself, but because it was Book 3 and I hadn't read any of the previous books. Maybe to you this isn't a big deal, but growing up with my mom as my "book mentor" it is next to sin to read books out of order in a series ;)

I forged ahead though (sorry mom), and was so glad I did! Rita made the transition for a 'new' reader like me easy. The intro wasn't filled with a lot of backstory to wade through and immediately I was drawn into the life of Sarah.

(Side note: as of right now I still haven't read the other two books so I cannot vouch for this books tie to the rest.)

For Sarah Carr, a strong and spirited woman, life is more than difficult. With the death of her husband, she is left alone in the world with barely any connections and forced to turn to her husband's family for help. Unfortunately, their help is nothing more than selling her into a life of servitude.

Faced with the humiliation of being auctioned as a slave and the ever present loneliness that comes from being thousands of miles away from everything you've ever know, Sarah rests on her faith in God and hope for new love despite the harshest of trails.

Much of Sarah's journey is wrought with hardship, but I appreciated the way in which Rita crafted her character, ever-hopeful and reliant on the Lord for the majority of the book. There were several twists and turns that I never would have seen coming (something I really admire in a good book) and I was very satisfied by the ending.

This is a must-read if you enjoy historical romance - or a well crafted story for that matter! The descriptions are fascinating and the action, romance, and plot are delightful.

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I received a free copy of this book for review purposes, but was under no obligation to read the book or post a review. I do so under my own motivation and the opinions I have expressed in this review are honest and entirely my own.