Kristie J’s review of Whispers of Heaven by Candice Proctor
Historical Romance published by Two Talers Publishing 2 May 15

One of the most marvelous things of all about having an e-reading device is having all my favourite books all on one iPad/tablet.  I’m a great re-reader, so over the years I’ve worked and hoped diligently that all my favourite books get released as e-books.  I usually check several times a year with fingers crossed and bated breath.  I’ve managed to get most of my all-time top 10 with a couple of too inflated prices, so I was only down to a very few that hadn’t been released as e-books yet. So I did the happy dance extraordinaire when just recently I found this book had been released as an e-book.  I barely looked at the price before hitting that Buy Now button, and it had barely uploaded it before I started reading it.

Ahhhhh, Whispers of Heaven by Candice Proctor was re-issued this past May. This has been firmly entrenched in my top 10 since I first read it back in 2001, fifteen years ago now.  I fell in love with everything about it then and it’s still the same today.

Jesmond (or Jessie) Corbett is a young woman of wealth living in Tasmania.  She has just returned from a two-year school time in England before she marries and settles down with her childhood friend.  Outwardly she’s the ever-obedient daughter/sister/fiancé, a woman of her time who never questions and is willing to accept her expected place in society.  But inwardly she is in an almost Sleeping Beauty state.  She just knows that something is not right with her life, though she doesn’t know quite what it is.

Things start to change when she cross paths with Lucas Gallagher, an Irish convict working on her family’s estate.  Fate seems to throw them together.  She’s brought home a wild horse, and Lucas seems to be the only one who can handle him, and then he is made her groom.  At first she’s quite disdainful, he’s nothing but a convict and she’s sure he is deserving of his punishment.  But, as she slowly gets to know him, she starts questioning all she’s held to be true.  She begins to see him as an individual, unfairly treated by the hated English who hunted and then sentenced him to a life of imprisonment, with no hope of ever being free again.  And so, as she begins to know him, she falls deeper and deeper in love with him, seeing him as the good and caring man he is.

Their love is doomed.  He can’t stay as a convict for life, it’s killing his soul daily, but he’s falling in love with Jessie every day, seeing past the pampered, spoiled young woman he first thought she was.  And Jessie is engaged to a dear friend and their marriage has been arranged almost since birth.  Although she feels stifled in her current life, she is determined to make the best of it.

I’ve read a few other books with this trope, hero is a convict and he and heroine fall in love, and, while I’ve loved them all, this one is my very favourite.  The writing is so very, very good.  It almost feels that we, the reader, experience everything Lucas and Jessie feel, how they slowly start seeing the real person underneath their masks, their longing and yearning for each other, and the impossibility of their ever being together.

While Lucas is a wonderful character and a wonderful swoon-worthy hero, Jessie is the real shining star for me and is one of my all-time favourite heroines.  She’s right up there with Eve Dallas of the In Death books and Jessica Trent of Lord of Scoundrels.  She grows from a rather nice but sheltered young woman, who just accepts society the way it is, into a young woman who doesn’t judge, one who is willing to give up her own hope of happiness to save someone she loves.  She’s ready to take a stand against what society says is wrong.

The secondary characters are also fully fleshed out.  Harrison, her fiancé, isn’t a bad guy, he’s just one who lives his life as society says he should.  His love for Jessie is within these boundaries and we see how wrong he is for her.  Jessie’s brother is also a very well-developed character.  He has a steak of rebellion in him just like Jessie does.  I know the author never wrote his story, but I do hope he found peace.

I don’t know if Ms. Proctor is planning on releasing all of her historical romances as e-books, I really hope so, because they are all wonderful – though for me, Whispers is the best.  She is currently writing St. Cyr Historical Mysteries under the name C.S Harris.

Grade: A+

Summary:

After years of schooling in England, Jesmond Corbett finds little has changed on her family’s estate along the sea-battered coast of Tasmania. Betrothed since childhood to a wealthy neighbor, Jessie comes home determined to conform to the expectations of her family and the society in which they live. But nothing in Jessie’s life has prepared her for the mysterious stranger who works in the stables, a man with searing eyes who haunts her dreams and awakens passions she never knew existed.

Irishman Lucas Gallagher arrived on the island in chains, a convict sentenced to a lifetime of slave labor for the English gentry. For four years he has lived a dead man’s existence, using every spare moment to plan his escape. But when he meets Jessie, she touches his cold, angry heart. And although their love has no future, he finds himself unable to deny the longings of his battered soul– longings that threaten to destroy what may be his last chance to reach for freedom. . . .

No excerpt available.