Meggie's Remains - Joanne Sundell

Over the past months, you may have caught me saying that I don't necessarily like romance novels. I can be a little bitter and jaded when it comes to the happily ever after thing. But with my never-ending audio experiences with the Outlander series, and now this book, Meggie's Remains, it seems I may have to eat my words.

We find ourselves in the year 1874, in the wild Colorado territory. Meggie has fled the East Coast to Denver to start a new life. Our first glimpse of our heroine, Meggie, is this:


It was coming - molded gray, dank, rotting. The thing was coming. This time she'd get away. This time she'd outrun the devil! Meggie took off down the narrow passage. The instant she came up hard against a door, she tried the knob. It wasn't locked! It led outside, onto a stairwell, then to an alleyway below. Ignoring the bitter cold, she scrambled down the flight of stairs and then quickly cleared the dark corner of the unknown building. She kept running, not stopping until she'd made it to the center of the deserted snowy street, until she'd made it into the light where she was safe. Spreading her arms wide, she tilted her face up into the welcoming snowfall and began to spin around as a child might - a child afraid of the monster after her - a child desperate to defend against such evil.

So my first thought is...this girl has issues. Serious issues. She is running away from something in her past, with one foot in reality and another in a fantasy world, and turning to God for protection. She panics when a man comes near her, she constantly chants a saying to ward off the evil that pursues her, and she dresses and acts like a seriously repressed schoolmarm. She lies about her name and her background, and imagines herself living in the world of Jane Eyre, having sexual fantasies about Edward Rochester. She faints and falls down and hurts herself. ALOT. I can't say I was initially too fond of this girl. She seems to be just a few cards shy of a deck, and in need of a good shaking.

Hours after her arrival in Denver, Meggie meets the well-muscled, wealthy, rugged, handsome Ethan - a Marlboro Man with some baggage of his own. But while hardship pushed Meggie towards God, Ethan's troubles have made him doubt his faith. Either way, there is chemistry abound. There is an undeniable connection here, but much confusion about prior relationships, psychological hangups, and all of those darned courtship issues. You want to scream "Get it together people! Just TALK IT OUT!". But we all know it is not that easy.

OK, so she's not THAT repressed. But my mom did teach me not to judge a book by its cover, which is a good lesson with respect to Meggie.

Without a man to protect her, she takes a job as a school teacher for a small isolated town. She lives by herself, learns to cook over a fire, battles the brutal winter, makes friends, manages a successful school, and learns to shoot a gun. She even pops a bullet into a drunkard's leg to protect a young woman from his unwanted advances. About halfway through the book, I will begrudgingly admit that I started to like her moxie.

In attempt to exorcise demons of the past, she begins to write a confessional letter to Ethan explaining her erratic and polarizing behavior. The letter is purely for therapeutic purposes - she never intends to mail it - but of course we all know that secret letters are meant to be found, right? Through this letter, though, we the readers finally see what's got Meggie so traumatized, and we begin to understand. As a result, our blood is all the more chilled when the devil himself tracks Meggie down to take care of her once and for all. We are struck with the realization that she may not be so crazy after all.

It was really quite easy to lose myself in this story - the romance, the personal struggle to overcome the worst mental and physical obstacles, a really nasty bad guy, a touch of religion, and just a hint of the paranormal. I found myself intrigued by the day-to-day life of those pioneers carving their way through the undeveloped West. I was also pleasantly surprised at the total 180 degree turn my attitude took towards Meggie. She won me over in the end.

I would like to thank Dorothy at Pump Up Your Book Promotion for inviting me to participate in this tour! And don't forget, if you are interested in winning one of two copies of this book, please leave your comments by October 3!

3.5 out of 5 stars