Waterbrook Multnomah Blog Tour: Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs

Here Burns My Candle
by Liz Curtis Higgs
Copyright 2010
Waterbrook Press
468 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7001-5
Fiction/Historical

From the publisher:
A mother who cannot face her future.

A daughter who cannot escape her past.

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.

Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips.

His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory’s many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.

A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illumines the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home.

My Review:
Liz Curtis Higgs well known for her Scottish historicals has done it again with Here Burns My Candle, adding her own unique twist to the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi. The setting for Here Burns my Candle is Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1745 at the height of the Jacobite rebellion. It is easy to see that Ms Higgs knows her stuff when it comes to Scotland. It is especially helpful when authors recommend sources for the factual material on which their novels are based AND include little anecdotes from their own travels when researching. That said Liz Curtis Higgs is one author that I would recommend if you like very realistic and detailed settings.

The story itself was also good although the first half was a little difficult for me to get through the characters were definitely interesting. I really felt bad for Lady Elisabeth, she didn't want to believe the gossip about her philandering husband especially since he was so loving and caring. She also had to deal with the pressures of marrying "above" her station and the constant reminder of it from family. I desperately wanted to like Donald but unfortunately that didn't happen even though what he was dealing with was an "addiction" and not lack a of love for Elisabeth. The dowager Lady Marjory Kerr was a little easier to understand, even though she was wealthy she had to deal with a lot in her lifetime including entering into a loveless marriage and his later death so it was easy to see why she was the way she was. However I was pleased at how the relationship between Lady Elisabeth and Lady Marjory evolved and I could definitely see the correlation between this story and the story of Ruth. The ending left a little to be desired but luckily there is a book 2 in the works for Spring 2011, Mine is the Light!

To learn more about Liz Curtis Higgs and her books visit:
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*I received my free review copy from Waterbrook Multnomah publishers.*