Ransome's Honor

This first volume in Dacus's Ransome Trilogy combines an engaging period story with charming characters, and likely will leave Christian romance fans wanting more. In 1802, William Ransome, a young lieutenant in the Royal Navy, is presumably on the verge of marrying his captain's daughter, Julia Witherington, when, concerned he would be doing so for financial security, he dashes her hopes by deciding not to propose. Dacus picks up the story 12 years later when Julia is 29 and still single and Ransome is a captain returned from the war with France. Circumstances throw them together again in Portsmouth, England, and what follows is a predictably Austenesque romance between two people obviously meant for each other, but fighting the inevitable. Adding to the tension are conspiring relatives who want Julia to marry a fortune-hunting cousin in need of her money. Dacus's descriptions of navy life and her character sketches are most appealing, but her references to prayer and the Bible that provide Christian elements in the novel sometimes seem forced and more like frosting than essential leaven.