A Love Surrendered by Julie Lessman

Annie and her sister are now orphans and have found their life uprooted to a new home....a home that seems less than welcoming.  Annie despises her great-aunt and decides that she doesn't need God and wants to prove herself as a girl with no cares.  She wants to give all of herself away to anyone just so she can say she's not "innocent" anymore.  Having chosen friends and a group of girls to hang out with that her sister Maggie did, losing her innocence is quite easy to do.  Well, it would be if Sergeant Steven O'Connor didn't stand in the way EVERY time she thought she was making progress.  Sure he saved her life and kept her from making bad decisions, but what does that matter?!

Steven is certain that his past can never be forgiven.  He lost his first love, Maggie, and doesn't know Annie is her sister.  He determines that he's only meant to be with those girls who are not so innocent because of his past.  For some reason, though, he thinks he needs to protect that girl that keeps finding herself in situations where boys would easily take advantage of her.  When he hears that Annie has changed her life around, he's happy and thinks that's the end of her.  But somehow, she ends up back in not only his life but in the life of his family.  Will he give up his heart?  Will she prove to him that she's not "wet behind the ears" and is in fact, a young woman worthy of one's love?  What changes her?

I have read the first two books in this series, the Winds of Change series.  I really enjoyed the first two books and was excited to read this one, too.  Not unsurprisingly, I loved it, too.  It was so hard to put down.  In fact, I think I surpassed my normal bedtime by about 2 hours each night just because I wanted to find out what happened next.  Lessman writes in such a way that draws you in from the very first page.  The longer chapters make the book harder to put down because you don't feel like you have a great stopping place.  Perhaps that's a ploy to keep her readers reading longer!  This series is very good and I laughed out quite a bit.  I love the personalities of each one in the family and I can easily imagine a family with these dynamics.  It was funny to see how the girls got into different predicaments and for the first time, the boys were apologizing!  The men in the family seemed to have become less harsh in this book than they were in the previous one.  I liked that because I really liked how they were portrayed in this one. 

Don't worry if you haven't started with book 1 in the series.  You won't be lost if you start with this one.  However, if you are looking for a new series to start, jump in with this one.

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I received this book free from Revell Publishers in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.