Harp on the Willow
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Love is patient and kind...1 Corinthians 13:4 West Virginia, 1869 Three years ago, Dr. Daniel Kavanagh settled down in the quaint town of Mount Laurel and established a medical practice there. The single doctor has been nursing an unrequited crush on Serena Norman, the local schoolteacher. Just down the road lies the coal mining town of Owenduffy, considered by most in Mount Laurel to be a backwoods hamlet. When the mine company's doctor abandons his post, Daniel agrees to visit one day a week, much to the consternation of his fellow residents, including his secret love, Serena. Addie Rose, the daughter of an Owenduffy coal miner, has a gift for caring for others. When a receptionist position in Daniel's office suddenly becomes available, what windows of opportunity will God open for Addie Rose—just a job, a possible career as a nurse, or maybe something more? Harp on the Willow is a touching tale of true love, the kind that can only come from a Savior who first loved us.
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Hoff was a new author for me, but this pretty cover was irresistible. I loved escaping into the doctor's world, and within a few pages I was anticipating a doctor-version of a Jan Karon novel. The atmosphere was intriguing and absorbing. I really loved David and Addie Rose as characters and Sarge was a dear.
But as I read along it felt as though all the detail had been poured into the early chapters of the book. The tone slowly changed to a more modern one (the town would have fit better between 1920-1950, rather than in 1869, with the modern sensibilities of the characters and with their speech patterns) and I kept feeling a jar each time I was reminded of the date. Here are some things that pulled down my enjoyment and subsequently my rating:
-David is not described until page 35
-POV switches without warning to several different random people. Most of them don't re-occur.
-SO MUCH TELLING. Weeks would pass over in a leap and be summarized in three pages of “xyz happened.”
-Serena is not believable. She's chasing David one minute, thinking to snatch him up and marry him, then not even contacting him for two weeks? The kisses were super awkward. She has a job despite being an heiress and tells her parents what to do...really unlikely in the time period.
-The mine owner's first name changes halfway through the book
-David's younger brother is said to be almost twenty, but was born after David's family immigrated to America, which in one spot was sixteen years ago and in another was eighteen years ago. A timeline chart would have easily prevented this.
-Abrupt ending. Whew, really? All those pages wasted in telling rather than showing, and now I'm told “they had been engaged for two weeks” and I'm supposed to be happy about the ending that skipped all that?
-The married-guy-hits-on-heroine trope. So cheap, so overdone. Eye roll.
If it had kept the tone of the early chapters and had been free of annoying errors and telling, it would have been an easy four star and maybe even a five. But the weak storytelling ended up overshadowing the beautiful setting too much.
Thanks for NetGalley and the publisher for a free review copy.
