Review: the Heart Mender

I recently read The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews and was overall very impressed by what I read. The Heart Mender is a story of love, war, friendship, and forgiveness. Helen Mason is a young widow during WWII. Helen is alone with no family and bitter and angry at the Nazi's for taking her husband's life. She works as a waitress during the day and feeds her bitterness at night, allowing her anger to shadow who she is. The story then takes us to the other side of the world where we meet German U-boat officer Lt. Josef Landerman. Overcome with grief over his family's death, he is betrayed by his own country and left for dead where he washes up on Helen's doorstep.

Although I found this story a little hard to get into, I was intrigued by the details of war that I had never heard of before. Andy Andrews gives you an inner look to the life of early America as well as the inner war between the Nazi's and the "true Germans". The story is based on true history as well as true characters whose names were changed to protect their privacy and anonymity. This gives it a ring of truth and reality that make it impossible to put down. For a Christian Fiction novel, there was very little talk about God. Although I appreciate the fact that this makes the book more applicable to the average person, I was also a little bit disappointed and felt that it made it lacking somehow. If this book were to have a 'moral of the story' it would definitely be about forgiveness and the healing power of love. At the end, Andy adds a "Where are they now?" portion as well as a readers guide that gives the reader further insight into the character's true lives.

I would most definitely recommend The Heart Mender: A Story of Second Chances to my readers. If you like romance, war, or historical fiction, you will love this book.

For more information on the book, The Heart Mender, or to purchase your favorite Christian fiction, check out DeeperShopping.com

**I received a free copy of this book through Thomas Nelson