Review: Cora's Heart by Rachael Herron

In recent times, I have read and reviewed a few Australian rural romance novels, but Cora's Heart is the first book in the genre that I have read that is set in America. Cora's Heart is the fourth in an interconnected series of novels (in other words, it can be read as part of a series or as a stand alone novel,) set in Cypress Hollow and features characters who both enjoy knitting and are somehow connected with a lady named Eliza. For me, this was my first visit to Cypress Hollow, so it was read as a stand alone novel.

Cora's Heart was an interesting lightweight romance. It's one of those novels, where the reader knows that everything is going to work out in the end, but what keeps the pages turning is the how. The heroine is Cora, a young widow who often worries about the what-ifs in life. Cora was abandoned by her parents at a young age, grew up in foster homes and had a husband who was somewhat unreliable, though she is reluctant to admit that last part to anyone else, let alone herself. She is even less reluctant to admit her feelings for Mac, her husband's cousin or the kiss that nearly occurred before her wedding.

Much of the drama in the story comes through misfortune, misunderstandings and characters who cannot communicate what they want. It is an enjoyable enough read, though the book is neither groundbreaking or particularly memorable. I liked Mac best of all the characters. Both he and teenage Olivia seemed to be the only main characters who were honest with themselves. Cora came across as a bit annoying and helpless at times and I didn't emphasise with her about her conflicting feelings with Mac as much as I could have. Still, the novel was an enjoyable enough lazy evening read.

Review copy: publisher/netgalley. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice blog!

New follower via GFC!
Bieke @ Bookaddict Bieke
22 March 2013 at 20:36
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean...
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu...
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A...
Read more