Here Burns My Candle (Book Review)

Here Burns My Candle is another novel by Liz Curtis Higgs, a few months ago I reviewed Mine is the Night, which happens to be the novel after this one. As I had read one of her novels again I was happy to see this one because I wanted to know more of the story of the main characters, Bess and Marjory. As it turns out, this book ends as the other begins, so this is not exact the beginning of the story but rather the middle.

I was very enthralled with the story telling and details of eighteenth century Scotland. In this novel, we learn how all is lost for Bess and Marjory and the details of their disgrace in Edinburg. I actually read this book very quickly and was sucked into the story rather easily. Although like the other book, I had trouble for the first few chapters getting used to the terms of eighteenth century Scotland, but it made the story more real for me.

This story has it all love, loss, a man’s betrayal of his wife, forgiveness, hope and even the characters finding God. The characters are well written and quickly become your friends and you find yourself hoping that everything turns out alright, even when you know in your heart that it most likely won’t. You still find yourself rooting for them to work out the issues that they have and find their way back to one another.

Bess is married to Donald, who is titled, wealthy and a womanizer. She loves her husband and eventually does find out about his cheating ways, although in his own ways he does confess to her. She is faithful to him and refuses to believe what she hears as rumors but when he admits it before he goes off to war, she is devastated and does forgive him. When he is killed in battle, again she is devastated, not knowing what she will do without him.

Janet is married to Andrew, the younger brother who is not titled, but is wealthy. Andrew and Janet were an arranged marriage and it seems as though not all that loving. They seem kind of cold towards each other and very indifferent. Janet seems to be in it for the money and prestige but not for love.

Marjory is the mother of Donald and Andrew, her husband having been dead for sometime, she is the head of this family. She is at first very snobbish and unfeeling. She looks down on Bess because she comes from common highlanders and not from wealth and privilege like she does. In the end, Marjory chooses to back the wrong side in the war and loses everything. She looses her sons, her money, her title, and her home. She is forced to rethink the way she has behaved and to make great changes.

All in all, this is a great book and I encourage everyone to read it, I honestly would read it in order. I am looking forward to reading the first book in this series.

Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs (Chapter 1)

I got this book from WalterBrook Multnomah for free for the sole purpose of this review.