Love Held Captive
Shelley Shepard Gray
During the past year I’ve enjoyed reading and reviewing Ms. Gray’s contemporary Amish romances. So when I learned her next novel would be set in both a different time period and culture, I looked forward to trying it. Love Held Captive is part of an historical trilogy following the lives of four Confederate soldiers who served time together at an officers’ POW camp on Johnson’s Island, Ohio. After the war all four return to their home state of Texas to rebuild their lives and discover love in the process. I had not read either of the two previous books and did not miss them. Love Held Captive stands very nicely on its own.
The book intertwines the lives of two honorable friends, two women struggling to survive, and one villain. The friends, Devin Monroe and Ethan Kelly, both Confederate officers, spent many months in a POW camp and succeeded in creating a tolerable situation for those incarcerated with them. When Colonel Daniel Bushnell arrived, the other prisoners soon recognized Bushnell’s basic meanness and Devin and Ethan often stepped in to stop his bullying. Little did they know that protecting people from Bushnell would become an important pattern in their lives.
Julianne Van Fleet and Lizbeth Barclay were both affected by Bushnell's cruelty during the war, and Devin and Ethan are attracted to the women who now live outside society’s norms. Ms. Gray weaves these four strong characters into parallel romantic story lines. Each man must face his own prejudice, family concerns, and the evil of Bushnell before the couples find a happy ending.
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