The Bound Heart by Dawn Crandall, © 2014

The Everstone Chronicles ~ Book Two



“God loves you, Meredyth, and wants to use your abilities to bless others as well as yourself. Even if you don't feel useful, you can be.”
    ― Dawn Crandall, The Bound Heart

Only Christ can rectify our past; we cannot ~ no matter how strenuously we might try. Circumvented by unforgotten events, we chide ourselves, never able to get out from underneath it on our own. Visualizing how we think it should turn out, our future is not entirely our own to decide. When others are involved, they too have free will to choose their own outcome ~ rather certain or retrospective in hidden thought.

Meredyth is longing to find fulfillment, her purpose, as she awaits her long-sought future unfolding.

The Everstone Chronicles

Dawn Crandall is an author to watch. I love her stories!

I began reading this second installment yesterday morning, interspersed until the wee hours. It was difficult to leave Meredyth in her quandary.

What an intriguing family the Everstones are. Some not so close, but yet when it comes down to it, they are very much aligned together. Meredyth Summercourt's family has a summer cottage on Mount Desert Island in Bar Harbor, Maine. Sailing from Boston every summer to cooler weather, families shared the summer months up and down the beach. Nearby, growing up, were Meredyth and her three older brothers, Lawry Hampton and his younger sister, Ainsley, and three Everstone brothers and their younger sister, Estella.

Determined to wait for one Everstone brother to return from years exploring Europe, Meredyth's story unfolds. Her heart is bound to him to right a wrong. I am waiting for her to find that is not who her alliance is to be with. Her struggles surface when she finds Lawry has interests that include her. Young Wynn Rosselet is rescued from a bully on the streets. Wynn is very vital in the story, as Meredyth begins to see what love looks like. Calling her an endearing "Mere'dy" is just the melody of her beginning to open her heart to hope.

Each chapter heading is followed by a quote that encloses the content perfectly. So rich in pursuit and received for who she is, Meredyth is lovingly drawn to forgiveness and freedom far greater than the self-loathing and unworthiness she has lived with for many years.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity...   --Jeremiah 29:11-14a

Love and acceptance available to reach out and have, to be alive and live. Safety in the one who waits for her. Written in first person from Meredyth's point of view, she seeks amid struggles to find where she rightfully belongs. Well-written, with the lives of those around her, the ending offers forgiveness and release looking to the welfare of others.

~*~

Dawn Crandall writes long inspirational historical romantic suspense. She has a BA in Christian Education from Taylor University and lives in northeast Indiana with her ever-supportive husband, her three cats [Lilly, Pumpkin and Clover] and their newest addition, a little baby boy.

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***Thank you to author Dawn Crandall and Whitaker House for this copy of Book Two in The Everstone Chronicles ~ The Bound Heart. This review was written in my own words. No other compensation was received.***