The Yielding Review

The Yielding by Tamara Leigh is a historical Christian romance. It is the second book in the Age of Faith series. This book is about Lady Beatrix Wulfrith the youngest daughter in the Wulfrith family. She is headed for a life devoted to God until the King orders that a Wulfrith daughter must wed Baron Lavonne to end the feud between the two families. As she aids her older sister to escape and avoid this edict an accident takes place leaving a man dead. Now the brother of the man killed, haunted by events from his own past, is after “justice” and will stop at no lengths to see it accomplished.

I gave this book a 2.5 out of 5 stars. I didn’t really dislike it, but didn’t like it either (just straight up okay). Tamara Leigh is a beautiful writer and her style draws you in. The characters are strong and well developed. I also like the portrayal of the time period. This plot was really interesting and I just wish the content had held up to it.

However, the romance didn’t really work for me. The whole ‘enemies to lovers’ plot can be well done, but I felt this book just didn’t accomplish that. I could follow and accept the male’s side of the love story, but not Beatrix. To my view she fell in love with him before she had any reason to, leaving me feeling like she was more ‘in lust’ than ‘in love’ (which is not something you want to see in a Christian romance, especially when the guy is not a believer). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good redemptive story line that leads to a strong romance, but this isn’t it. The timing just felt off between them.

Furthermore, the sexual content was a little more than I am comfortable with. I definitely want to see a reflection of reality in the characters experiencing attraction and the desire for/ experience of physical affection (hands holding, hugs, kisses) and don’t mind the implication of people having sex, but I felt it was taken a bit too far here (visuals I didn’t want and descriptive situations with lack of consent). Overall, I feel it could have been written differently; in a way that would have still accomplished the story line and would have set better with me at the same time. However, I am aware that this is one of those tricky areas with Christian romance: how accurate to real life, how descriptive, what is ok and what isn’t (not easy questions to answer and I am sure not easy to write).

Since the romance is key to the story, and I had so many problems with it, I just couldn’t really enjoy the book (hence the low score). But, as I said, I didn’t hate it. I would be interested in trying again with book three to see if the series is worth continuing.

Note: I have read book one (The Unveiling), but that was quite a while ago. If any interest is shown, I would be happy to reread it and write a review for it as well.