Thorn in My Heart Book

How I hate Leeana, let me count the ways...

When I picked up this trilogy I didn't know it was the story of the Biblical Jacob, but the author made it so obvious I picked up on this fact within a few paragraphs. Then I got excited because the love story of Jacob and Rachel is one of the most beautiful in the Bible. I still do not understand why the author chose to place the story in eighteenth century Scotland. The author was tediously paralleling Jacob's life in the beginning then heads into alternate Biblical history which I find disconcerting. The stories of the patriarchs should not be altered. Oh, and the middle English spellings of words was really annoying.

Why I hate Leeana (Leah) in this story. Over and over, the author keeps writing that Leeana should have been the choice of Jamie (Jacob) because she was the epitome of sacrificial love. Let me tell me how in the story Leeana was the MOST SELFISH OF ALL. First, when her father promises her hand in marriage to a man she is not physically attracted to, she doesn't try to love him and even refuses the marriage once Jaime comes to live with them - even though it is obvious from the first that Jamie is smitten with her younger sister Rose (Rachel). Jamie rebuffs her attempts and tells her plainly he's not interested, yet she keeps trying to win his affections. After Jamie becomes engaged to Rose, Leeana professes her love to Jaime, asking him to marry her instead, and is soundly told by Jaime that he loves only Rose. When that doesn't work, she hides herself under Rose's bride veil and presents herself in a completely darkened room as Rose to a sleeping, drunk Jamie who thinks his wife has finally arrived to consummate their marriage.

How is she the self-sacrificing one? The one full of love? She becomes obsessed with Jaime, stalks him after he's engaged to her sister, refuses to obey her father in marrying another, and then jumps naked into the bed of a drunk bridegroom.

On the other hand, Rose doesn't want to marry Jamie because she's too young but obeys her father and tries to find affection in her heart for her future groom. She spends much more time with him and grows to romantically love him by their wedding only to find out that her sister took advantage of her drunk husband and is now his wife.

What is scary is that the author creates Reader's Notes at the end to let you know that two side characters, Neda and Duncan, are supposedly to help everyone do what is right in God's eyes......But, Neda is the one who tells Leeana to jump into Jaime's bed and steal him for her husband. God would never give that advice.

The story ends with Jamie having an emotional affair with Rose while being physically faithful to his pregnant wife (except for kissing). The novel ends with Jamie's son's birth and him deciding to try and love his wife and put Rose behind him.

It is very obvious who the author is cheering for: Leeana. It appears she wants to re-write the Biblical Leah's tale and have her become the victor of Jacob's heart. I almost had to put the book down when the character Jamie says that he didn't know what love was until Leeana loved him for love was sacrifice. But I can't see this. If Leeana sacrificed her own obsession with Jamie, she would have let the two people who loved each other get married. She put herself first. Jaime and Rose's misery was because of Leeana's selfishness.