A Heart Most Worthy

  Siri Mitchell is quite well known in the Christian book world for her inspirational fiction. While this book mentions God the spiritual element is not very large compared to most Christian novels. Also the characters in this book are Catholic.
  The narration of this book is rather unusual as it at first seems like this book is written in the third person, when suddenly the narrator inserts themselves into the story and makes comments upon the characters actions. I found it a very interesting way to write a story and it was not distracting to me.
  This book centers around three girls that work at Madame Forza's clothing shop in 1918. Julietta, Annamaria and Luciana are all Italians with very different personalities. Julietta is reckless and falls for a rather dangerous man named, Angelo. Annamarie is the oldest daughter in her family and as such she is expected never to marry according to tradition. But then she falls for the Sicilian grocer's son, something utterly forbidden. Luciana is the Count of Roma's daughter and she is literally scared for her live because her father was murdered by an anarchist. Unfortunately or fortunately Billy Quinn, the wealthy son of one of Madame's clients falls in love with her despite her impoverished state.
  This book was a bit slow at the start but the second half moved quickly. I felt that the romance element was introduced too late in the book to completely develop the plot. The romance often seemed rushed, which is a shame because the plot lines are quite good. You would think that this book would be depressing because much of it is set around World War One and the 1918 flu but somehow Mitchell manages to keep the overall tone light. Part of that is due to the fairy-tale like quality of the romance. I think that part of Mitchell's problem is that she has three main plot lines and at least one secondary one in a 400 page book. If this book had been the size of a Julie Lessman book I think the whole book would be a lot better.
  This book is quite well written and I really enjoyed it. Siri Mitchell is an author to watch and I will definitely check out her other books.
Reviewed by Elizabeth