Recent Reads - My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island: Maude's Mooring

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My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island: Maude’s Mooring by Carrie Fancett Pagels - The story opens with Maude going to the wharf to meet Greyson Luce, who she is expecting to marry. But to her shock and embarrassment, Greyson arrives with a wife in tow. Ben Steffan, a Detroit Press reporter, happens to observe and is intrigued by the pretty young woman in obvious distress. But he is there to pursue a story and is working under an assumed name, so he decides it's unlikely he'll run into her again.

Ben is looking for a story about fortune-hunting men who pursue heiresses staying at the Grand Hotel, and must do his best to stay in the character he's chosen, Freidrich Konig. He does, in fact, run into Maude again - or rather, her little brother Jack runs into Ben - and the friendship grows quickly between them. Ben is torn - he needs his story in order to get a promotion, but publishing it could hurt Maude. Besides that, she knows him as Friedrich and how can he hope to win her when he is posing as something he is not?

Maude is expecting to run her family's inn, since it's been owned by the women in her family for generations, but her father is reluctant to allow her to take the reins. She gets a job as a maid at the Grand to try and prove that she is capable of hard work, but she keeps that from her father, and hopes that no one at the Grand will recognize her. But eventually, of course Ben does.

In the background of the relationship story, Maude's extended family and friends try to protect her and some seem to be wrangling for control of the Inn and other business holdings; and there are definitely some secrets and ulterior motives.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this story, but I had trouble understanding motivation in many cases. How did Maude hope to prove anything by working as a maid, especially if her father didn't know? How was it that she could so easily slip into using Ben's real name when she had only known him as Friedrich Konig to that point? What was going on with her father and her uncle? Their actions didn't always make sense to me either. Unclear motives or inexplicable actions in a story don't surprise me or bother me, in general, but I found it particularly odd given that this author is a psychologist.

From the publisher:

Journey now to Mackinac Island where . . .

A Tangled Gilded Age Love Story Unfolds.

Although the Winds of Mackinac Inn has been in her mother's family for generations, Maude Welling's father refuses to let her run it without the guidance of a husband. So she seeks to prove her worth and independence by working incognito as a maid at the Grand Hotel.

Undercover journalist Ben Steffens, posing as a wealthy industrialist, pursues a story about impoverished men chasing heiresses at the famed hotel. While undercover, he becomes attracted to an intriguing maid. By an act of heroism Ben endears himself to the closed-mouthed islanders -- including Maude -- and he digs deep for his story.

But when scandal threatens, will the growing love between Maude and Ben be scuttled when truths are revealed?

Other books in this series: My Heart Belongs in Fort Bliss, Texas: Priscilla's Reveille by Erica Vetsch

Visit Barbour Publishing for more info on where to buy.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review.

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