Reviewed by Lynda Ochsner
T. Davis and Isabella Bunn’s "Heirs of Acadia" series continues, with its second installment, The Innocent Libertine. One of the minor characters from the first book (The Solitary Envoy), then an impish 8-year-old, Abigail Aldridge, is now a young adult in 1824. Though the story starts in England, where Abigail has grown up, it later returns to America and later introduces the early years of the westward expansion – west to Wheeling (now in West Virginia), with mention of the furthest reaches (Indiana, and St. Louis).
The Innocent Libertine starts out a bit slowly, and the opening scenes portray a rather unlikeable, self-centered and immature Abigail. She longs for adventure, but claims she is doing the Lord’s work while really just rebelling against her parents. The story does get better, as later on we see Abigail repent and suddenly mature, a more fearful Abigail – ostracized by her friends and family, due to scandalous rumors. After that point, Abigail is more reserved, afraid to make mistakes again, yet socially easier to be around as she awakens to the American adventure.
Yet the real character development takes place not with Abigail, but another character, Countess Lillian Houghton. An atheist widowed woman now at least in her thirties, she has serious financial woes. Banker Simon Bartholomew, Erica Langston’s nemesis from the first book, blackmails Lillian in an attempt to ruin the Langston family, including Erica and Gareth Powers and their anti-slavery work. Through Lillian’s plight, The Innocent Libertine reveals the novel’s central message, of hope and a future, a second chance to begin again.
One thing that doesn’t quite fit for this book, and the series thus far, is the series’ name – "Heirs of Acadia." Despite the name, these books have nothing to do with Acadia, whether that land in Nova Scotia, or the Acadians (Cajuns) in Louisiana. (One might think that "Heirs of Acadia" would be about the English Protestant settlers brought in to Nova Scotia after the Expulsion, and/or the Acadians that returned after the Expulsion.)
Though the first series "Song of Acadia" at least briefly referenced that topic, with characters in the first book (The Meeting Place) affected by the Acadian Expulsion in 1755, the later books of both that series, as well as this successor series, are about early Americans and Britains, with settings in the mid-Atlantic area (Washington City and Pennsylvania) and London. The focus throughout the last few books has been on the early abolition movement, with such historical figures as Wilberforce. This book expands beyond that with a glimpse at the American Westward Expansion, and the next book (scheduled for summer 2005) apparently returns to the anti-slavery movement in England.
As a series about America’s early years -- the exciting period of a new country with so many possibilities and available land – and William Wilberforce’s Christian work in England, though, The Innocent Libertine is another excellent addition to the Christian Historical Fiction, American history genre. The authors skillfully blend items of historical interest with a variety of characters and a decent plot in which two women find forgiveness and the opportunity for a fresh, new start to life in a new country.