Escape from Heart Book

A community falls apart under the harsh rule of a tyrannical leader.

Heart Colony, founded as a Mennonite community striving to be close to God and nature, becomes a place of fear, denial, and injustice under the cruel and evil direction of a new leader, Hezekiel Whittenstone. Sarah Ruth Heart wants one simple thing--to compete in the countywide spelling bee--but her uncle Hezekiel refuses to allow it. Sarah Ruth struggles with her desire to attend school and compete in the spelling bee, to be attractive to the boy she secretly likes, and to overstep the boundaries dictated by the repressive Hezekiel. Her secret rebellion brings danger to herself and her family, and Sarah Ruth is forced to make difficult decisions about her future--with consequences that are more far-reaching than she ever could have imagined.

About the Author:

Lynette Stark has taught high school and junior high school for sixteen years. She lives in Mississippi. Escape from Heart is her first novel.

Publishers Weekly

In this mostly flat first novel about upheavals in a Mennonite colony in northeast Mississippi, Sarah Ruth Heart, age 14, describes the curious events that lead up to her having to temporarily "find refuge" in the outside world. Sarah Ruth's uncle, Hezekiel, is the leader of the colony--and despite his righteous talk, he is very clearly the villain here. He refuses to send the colony's children to school, embezzles community funds and consorts with a young widow, all the while painting himself as a hero (he gets medicine for a sick baby; he rescues a woman from a fire--a fire he himself set). Sarah Ruth is determined to compete in a local spelling bee, and her actions contribute to a series of contrived events that culminate in Hezekiel's downfall and the restoration of Heart Colony. While the juxtaposition of a Mennonite community with what Sarah Ruth calls "the modern world" provides some obvious tensions, neither setting has depth. Characters tend to be either good or bad, and the Mennonites' faith receives very little attention--their way of living as portrayed here seems more idiosyncratic than an expression of a belief system. Sarah Ruth's voice can be jarringly mature: referring to a gas spill in town, she observes, "The gas was now fully soaking into the ground, and there no longer was such a direct danger of fire, but a bigger environmental danger." Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.