Beloved by Robin Lee Hatcher - A Book Review

Diana Brennan  was adopted by a loving couple when she was a little girl.  When she turned 17 she fell head over heals in love for Tyson Applegate who is the son of a wealthy and hard to please mine owner.  Diana and Tyson quickly get married before she even meets his family.  Not long after their marriage she begins to find out that Tyson had ulterior motives for marrying her.  He needed to get married in order to get his hands on his inheritance before he turned 30.  He is very defiant towards his father and soon abandons Dianna and takes off to explore the world.  He ends up fighting with the Rough Riders in Cuba.  Years pass and Tyson is presumed dead.  Diana is ready to move past her broken heart and marry again, she just needs Tyson to be declared legally dead.  Just when she least expects it Tyson shows up and turns Diana's world upside down.

While Tyson was away, he became a changed man.  He gave his heart to the Lord and is ready to make restitution.  He is also running for the senate and asks Diana to live with him as his wife for 6 months during the election period and let him prove to her that he has changed.  If at the end of the six months she wants to leave he will provide her with a home for her and her mother and allowance for the rest of her life, but he will not divorce her.  Diana suspects the only reason he is doing this is for appearance sake, but agrees anyway.  She guards her heart, determined not to let him break it.

I absolutely loved this book.  Robin Lee Hatcher did a great job writing this novel and I was sorry for it to end.  I loved the whole restitution part as that seems to be a very important part of salvation that tends to get overlooked.  Diana is a character with a back bone and a streak of stubbornness that at a few times made me want to thump her in the head, but with her brokenness of the past years she has become very guarded and does not trust easily.  It is hard for her to understand that the people that hurt her so deeply in the past have now changed.  Tyson is determined to show his love and prove to her that he is a changed man and I love the romantic way that the author portrayed his character.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves historic fiction!

***This book was provided to me by booksneeze in exchange for my review.