BooksChatter: ☀☄ Where The Heart Is: Choices of the Heart [1]

Thank you for joining for the Release Day Celebrations for Where The Heart Is, a Historical Romance by Jennie Marsland (7 September 2016, Tirgearr Publishing, 199 pages).

This is the first book in the Choices of the Heart series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, trailer and excerpt below. Read the first three chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Jennie Marsland will be awarding a digital copy of Where the Heart Is to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), and reviews (✍).

Synopsis | Trailer | Teaser | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

When Rochelle McShannon moves with her father from Morgan County, Georgia to the Yorkshire Dales, she thinks she’s leaving behind everything that matters to her. Her mother has passed away, her twin brother is going west to avoid the looming Civil War, and her family’s unpopular views on slavery and secession have destroyed her relationship with the man she hoped to marry. If returning to her father's childhood home eases his grief, Chelle asks for nothing more.

Martin Rainnie understands grief. Since the loss of his wife in childbirth, he’s known little else, except anger. He’s retreated to his farm and turned his back on the world, including his baby daughter, who’s being fostered by Chelle’s relatives. With little Leah drawing them together, Martin begins to wonder if he can love again – and convince Chelle to do the same.

But the war overseas has far-reaching consequences, even in a small English village. Can Martin and Chelle overcome danger, loss, and bitterness to make a home where the heart is?

Teaser: Excerpt

Chapter Two

      After her night in yet another strange bed, Chelle woke full of aches and kinks. It was raining lightly when she got up. Once the breakfast dishes were done, she decided to limber herself up with a walk. The view she’d seen from her bedroom window beckoned.
      She set off along the road that led out of the village into farm country. The leaf buds were just beginning to swell, and a steep hill reared up before her, swathed in tender green. The rough wind coming down from the high country pulled strands of hair from Chelle’s braid and whipped them around her face. She re-tied her thick blue cloak and walked faster to warm herself. The drizzle had given way to sunshine, and the breeze didn’t nip as keenly as it had the previous day.
      Chelle climbed the hill and found herself in the middle of a sunny expanse of short, rough grass, intermingled with darker patches of heather. Bare rock showed through the thin soil here and there. The air was alive with birdsong and the slightly sour smell of awakening earth.
      The track met the river at a shallow ford, with stepping stones conveniently placed for crossing. On the other side, it soon dwindled to a walking trail. Chelle strolled along, feeling like she was walking on the roof of the world, until she reached the edge of a steep cliff. Her breath caught from more than exertion.
      She’d never seen anything like it. She stood high above miles of moorland that extended as far as she could see, empty except for the occasional farmhouse and sheep in the stone-walled pastures. Amid the farms stood a village similar to Mallonby, its cluster of stone buildings dwarfed by distance.
      She dwindled to nothingness in the middle of it all. Chelle’s mind still clung to the familiar landscape she’d left behind, but underneath that homesick longing she responded to her new surroundings so strongly tears came to her eyes. She sat there until she started to cramp with cold. A queer feeling of regret came over her as she started back along the track. Since leaving home, she’d envied her brother moving into untamed country. Now, she’d found a bit of it for herself.
      [...]

Where The Heart Is
Available NOW!

About the Author

Jennie Marsland lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Canada’s beautiful East Coast. She has had a lifelong love affair with words and history, starting with her family’s stories of life in Nova Scotia in earlier times.

Jennie teaches English, science and history at a local private school, and when she isn’t writing, spends her free time cooking, gardening, playing guitar, and catering to the whims of her two very spoiled Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers.

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