Flight of Fancy by Laurie Alice Eakes - Reviewed!!

About the Book: (from Revell Publishing)

Her head is in the clouds. His feet are planted firmly on the ground. Can love cover the distance?

Cassandra Bainbridge may be a bit of a bluestocking, but when Geoffrey Giles is near, love seems a fine alternative to passion for Greek and the physics of flight. With his dashing good looks and undying devotion to her, the earl of Whittaker sets Cassandra's heart racing with his very presence. It seems his only flaw is his distaste for ballooning, the obsession that consumes so much of her thoughts.

When a terrible accident compels her to end her betrothal, Cassandra heads for the country to recover from both her injuries and her broken heart. With time on her hands and good friends to help her, she pursues her love for ballooning and envisions a future for herself as a daring aeronaut. But when Lord Whittaker slips back into her life, will she have to choose between him and her dream?

My Thoughts:

“We pushed God out of our lives because He was an inconvenient reminder of our bad behavior.”   (p 207)

OH MY!!! OH MY! MY! MY!  Flight of Fancy is SO MUCH MORE than I expected to experience!  This novel has an unexpectedly complex plot  line that is woven among the lives of several people over a  number of years.  There are sins that are unrepented of that wreck havoc on many lives.  There are sins that are repented of that transform lives into things of beauty.  There are characters who really struggle to accept the forgiveness that God offers them, and there are characters that can accept God’s forgiveness but continue to punish themselves because they think they must suffer their entire lives because of the wrong they’ve committed.  Then there are those characters who are so unconscionable that they will use anyone, no matter the hurt, to satisfy their own desires.

In the end….after all of this and much, much more, the reader is still left with their mouth gaping in surprise at the end of this story!! Oh my goodness!!  The gospel and forgiveness is lived out in the lives of these characters in a very powerful way, and you will not soon forget their love, their sacrifices and their heroism among the pages of this very well-told tale!!

AND….I’ve served as a crew member for a hot air balloon for the past couple of years, and I was entirely captivated by the ballooning history!  I loved every single aspect of this book!! There is something for everyone, and a lot of truth about the human heart that will convict, strengthen and encourage your faith!  YOU MUST CHECK THIS BOOK OUT!!! It is wonderful!!

About the Author:

Laurie Alice Eakes is the author of Lady in the Mist, Heart's Safe Passage, A Necessary Deception, A Flight of Fancy, and several other novels. She won a National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency in 2007 for Family Guardian. Laurie Alice writes full-time from her home in Texas, where she lives with her husband and sundry dogs and cats.