The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn

Author: Lori Benton

Summary

Raised by her step-father, Tamsen Littlejohn was raised and trained for the sole purpose of marrying up in order to improve her step-father’s social and financial standing. Desperate to escape the prison that her step-father has created and the marriage he is pushing her toward which would only keep her enslaved to her current life, Tamsen attempts to run away but her plans are thwarted by the “rescue” of her step-father and by the man who will eventually help her escape.

Just as her mother is revealing to Tamsen the way that they can escape the abuse of Hezekiah Parrish, he kills her to silence her. Tamsen, given one hour to prepare herself to meet to smooth things over after a poor initial meeting with  Ambrose Kinkaid, instead runs to find help for her mother. Jesse Bird, the man who first stood in her way as she tried to escape now becomes her only way of escape.

Under false accusations of kidnap and murder, Jesse risks his own life to help Tamsen with Parrish and Kinkaid pursuing them. Tamsen seeks a life of her own choosing; Jesse seeks to discover who he is and where he came from. Each of them will find what they are looking for and more in this exciting story that takes you down a trail of history, suspense, and love, and unfolds a tangled web of family relationships as each discovers who they are.
(Read CHAPTER 1)

Review

This is the first Lori Benton book that I have read and I want to read more! The book is almost 400 pages long and I would not have wanted a single page less. Sometimes you wish for a long book to end because it’s boring, but I only wanted this one to end so that I could know what finally happened!

Lori's writing is incredible. She writes incredible descriptions of the characters and everything is written so eloquently. As I read, it was almost like I was watching a movie. I could see everything happening. Great writing!

I think that the main characters were well-developed and I felt like I knew them pretty well… at least as well as they knew themselves. The supporting characters were enough developed to aid the story without altering the focus; however, they were given enough of their own story that another book could be written with some of them as main characters. In fact, I would enjoy reading a book about Cade (Jesse’s foster father) or Ambrose Kincaid.

I had no idea that there was once a State of Franklin! A little bit of history is woven into the story. I’d be interested in learning more. While this was informative, I did find that at times I got a little lost in the history. Part of that could be due to the fact that it’s history I am completely unfamiliar with, but it could also be that it distracted a little from the overall story. That being said, I wouldn’t do away with it because the book wouldn’t be the same without it and it was a really great book!

I really loved the cover of this book. Tamsen is portrayed beautifully and I found myself often flipping to the front cover to see the picture of Tamsen and picture her in whatever scene I was reading.

I highly recommend reading The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn. It will be available for purchase April 15, 2014. You can pre-order the book at Amazon.com and I suggest you do so! It was THAT good.

*I obtained this advance reading copy for free in exchange for an honest review through Waterbrook-Multnomah’s Blogging for Books program.*