The Blue Enchantress

I love M. L. Tyndall's pirate adventures! The Blue Enchantress is the sequel to The Red Siren and is full of what we've come to expect from a Tyndall book: excitement, adventure, true love and God's grace. This, too, would make a wonderful movie. I can't wait to read the next book!

Hope Westcott has a lifetime of bad choices under her dainty little belt. The most recent one--an affair with a married man--lands her on an auction block to be sold into slavery. Captain Nathaniel Mason is running from God's call to the ministry. He is determinedly building a shipping business, ensuring himself a lifetime of security, which he mistakenly believes wealth can buy. His weakness is a secret love for the vain and frivolous Hope Westcott. When he sees her on the auction block, his love demands he sacrifice his ship and its cargo to save her. Nathaniel has every intention of returning his lovely new possession to her home in Chares Towne, but God uses stormy seas, shipwreck, illness, and pirates to waylay the headstrong couple until they see things His way. The Blue Enchantress is a captivating tale of love, forgiveness, acceptance, personal and spiritual growth, and learning to yield to the Master's will. M.L. Tyndall breathes such life into her characters that the reader is reluctant to bid them farewell on the last page. This second installment in the Charles Town Belles series is chock full of laughter and tears, sin and redemption, love and its seedier counterpart. The Blue Enchantress is a pirate's chest of literary treasure ... more than worth the voyage!

The Blue Enchantress picks up where the Red Siren left off. Hope Wescott longs for love and acceptance but seems to be looking in all the wrong places. She follows Lord Faulkland after he spoke to her of a future together but finds herself on the auction block being sold to the highest bidder. (and the bidders were none too appealing). Captain Nathaniel Mason has been drawn to Hope for quite some time. He knows she is not the type of woman he would ever pursue, she reminds him of where he came from. However, when he sees Hope being auctioned-off he knows he can't just leave her there. He sells his ship to pay for her and with very little money left finds passage for both of them back to Charles Towne. From that point on, it's a high seas adventure you cannot put down complete with shipwreck, pirates and God's faithful and watchful care. Will Hope find the love she so desperately longs for? Will Nathaniel ever see Hope as the Lady she so longs to become? This was the second installment of the Charles Towne Belles series and it was a page turner! I love how MaryLu always writes characters that are so real and believable. (and fun) No perfect heros in her books only honorable flawed ones. The story presented so beautifully the picture of God's unfailing love for us. The end of the story leaves you wanting for the next installment. aarrgg! You could read this as a stand alone but I recommend you read The Red Siren first for a much fuller story. Highly recommended.

Oh. My. Goodness. I loved it! M.L. Tyndall has an amazing way of writing. She can write a suspenseful scene like no one else. Here is an example: "The maelstrom outside the tiny glass oval writhed in an undulating vision of raging black clouds one second and a hissing caldron of white-capped water the next." I even became shaky during the hurricane! Tyndall draws you in, so that you are on the edge of your seat. She will make you laugh, cry, and never want to put the book down. Hope Westcott is a character that I think every woman can relate to. Broken by life, only valuing her outward appearance, she searches for love in all the wrong places. Tyndall has a way of putting you in the character's shoes, and she makes the story come alive in a way that most authors never achieve. There was only one thing that I didn't like and that is on the back cover. It says, "...God's call on his life to become an impoverished pastor." That is not true. God doesn't want us to be impoverished. In the Bible it says that God wants us to be healthy and prosperous. However, in the book it is not said that he is called to be an impoverished pastor. It only says that he is poor now, and he will start out being a poor pastor, not that he must be, or is called to be, poor. I think this was a simple mistake in the writing of the back cover, as it is not portrayed that way in the book. I definite to-read!

In her second novel about the Belles of Charles Towne, the lovely daughters of Admiral Westcott, MaryLu Tyndall scores big once again. Her historical fiction is spot on in its authenticity and historic details. Set in the early 1700's, the novel plunges us deep into the culture of the day. You can feel the dust, the wind, the darkness; you can smell the sea, the rain, and the putrid garbage in the ugly sections of St. Kitts. You can also feel the emotions of the characters, from rage to deep love and compassion, from icy coldness to strong passion. Mrs. Tyndall is the whole package as a writer: her characters are well-developed, complex, and believable; the action is superb and often breath-taking; while we expect certain developments to take place (she is, after all, writing romance!), there are quite a few surprising events and changes throughout the story. And as is always true in her novels, the details, the descriptions, are the best I've ever read. We as readers experience it all, good and bad; we are utterly immersed in this world. She also succeeds in making us, or at least me, care about some characters that really didn't seem that lovable at first. Like Hope, who was a snobbish rich girl always throwing herself at men, embarrassing her family, and not seeming to care about anyone but herself. Then there's a woman on the ship with her, a very pregnant lady, who seems so cold and snooty at first. This is just one of the lessons of the book to make us look at things from God's perspective. The God factor is evident everywhere in the novel,but not in a forced or preachy way; the spiritual is integral to the characters, their growth, and the plot itself. Lessons have to do with the true gospel, our need for God's love above all else, learning to love as God does, trust, prejudice, prayer, faith, and so much more. So many parts of the book struck me with the beauty of the truth that MaryLu Tyndall imparts through her characters. In case you can't tell, I highly recommend The Blue Enchantress. It's an adult novel, but I know teenage girls will love it, too. Anyone who loves historical fiction or romantic novels will enjoy it for sure.