Binding Fire (Children of the Light #3)

HISTORICAL:  Caleb didn’t expect to find his wife - his very pregnant wife - in town. Although full of loathing and mistrust, he will still do his duty to his unborn child, knowing the timing makes it his. He decides to take Annie home to the family farm, while he figures out what to do next. He wants to go to the back country, away from the Cayle farm, but her pregnancy makes those plans impossible. Annie knows she did wrong by her husband, and knows she instigated the destruction of her marriage. She had reasons, but now he won’t listen. All they can do is go home, and hope for the best.

Set in 1760s Virginia and filled with Quakers as secondary characters and plotlines, this tale has rich history to pull from, and does it well. The flavor of the time period shows up, and the descriptions are well done, but dialogue and inner thoughts often lapse into modern usage. Manner of speech, which set the Quakers apart from so many who lived nearby, is absent, except by hit or miss. There are many plots threads here and the first third of book is rather confusing, though every plot opened is closed by the end and all the threads woven well in the last half of the book, but some readers will have a hard time making it that far. The twists and turns are intricate and all well done, though that much happening to one family—one couple—does push plausibility a bit too far. "Binding Fire" is a fascinating look into Virginia life just before America came to be.

Julie York