The Wayward Heart

Rating:
Summary: The Wayward Heart
Review: The Wayward Heart had all the elements needed for a good time travel romance. Unfortunately, the author went all over the place trying to add depth to too many characters and ended up stretching too thin on the main characters. The plot traveled along OK but wasn't developed as much as I think it could have been. More development of plot and less description would have helped. The ending was weak also, not resolving loose ends like does the main male lead ever believe the main female lead has come from the past, etc. Very unsatisfying, left me dangling. I hope she trys again though, definite potential if she keeps at it.

Rating:
Summary: Incomplete.... fell short....
Review: This would have been an excellent book, if the author worked a little more on the contemporary language, developing the future/past relationship of the characters, and just plain given the story more attention.

Betty Brooks created some wonderful characters here, but didn't fully develop all of them... some had such tiny parts in the story, I wondered why they were created in the first place.

When Anne travelled a century into the past, she was somehow able to adapt easily to the new surroundings... stretching into her memories of camping with her grandmother. However, camping in modern times is never that similar to travelling into the 1800s.

Ms. Brooks would have created a better story, had she shown the readers the differences in the modern and past communication styles. Anne used modern language, that was easily understood by the characters in the past... even though some of these words meant other things in that time. For example a kid, would be goats... not a child. When Anne called herself an offensive curse word, the characters from the past didn't wonder why she was calling herself a female dog... but instead responded with "you said it!"

The disappointing thing about this is that it was such a good story, that had such promise... if only a little more care and attention would have been given to the differences to the past/present time frame.

In addition to the other problems I listed about the book, the ending wasn't complete.... there were so many loose ends. When reading, I can see how talented Ms. Brooks is, however, a little more development of the story needs to take place... regardless of how long the story would become. This could have been a wonderful romantic story, about some very warm and caring characters.