The Wind Harp (Mountain Song Legacy)

B.J. Hoff
Harvest House Publishers (2006)
ISBN 0736914587
Reviewed by Kelli Glesige for Reader Views (12/06)

Maggie MacAuley has returned home to Skingle Creek in Northeastern Kentucky in 1904, on leave from her teaching job at Hull House in Chicago.  With her father seriously injured in a mining accident yet still determined to work, a brother who wants to quit school to work in the mines to provide for the family, and a mother trying desperately to stop her husband from destroying himself, Maggie quits her position in Chicago to remain in Kentucky to help her family.  As fate would have it, Jonathon Stuart, the school principal, offers Maggie a teaching job at the local school.  As a child, Maggie had always had a crush on Jonathon when he was her teacher, and their age difference is not that far apart since he was just a young new teacher at the time.

Maggie’s married sister, Eva Grace, returns home with both upsetting and exhilarating news that she hesitates to share with anyone except Maggie.  Jonathon and Maggie also visit the home of little Huey and his sister Selma, two students at the school who are prone to being absent, and Maggie is appalled at their discoveries.  Little Huey is being physically abused and refuses to talk.  And to top off the list of problems, Maggie finds herself falling once again for the school principal, but Jonathon and his secretary, Carolyn Ross, are often seen on Sundays in his horse and buggy.  Carolyn is obviously smitten with Jonathon, and she is about his own age, unlike Maggie.

Dr. Gordon, the new female doctor in town, helps Eva Grace, Huey and Selma, and can possibly help Maggie’s father, Matthew, but the stubborn man says he will never allow a female physician to examine him.  How will Matthew ever approve of a possible relationship between his young adult daughter and her former teacher, Jonathon, if a female physician is too unheard of in his eyes?

I enjoyed “The Wind Harp,” for B.J. Hoff created characters with depth and personality, and their adventures kept me enthralled.  I feared I would have trouble following the story line since I had not read the first book in the series, but that was not the case at all.  “The Distant Music” precedes this book and “The Song Weaver” will be released in the fall of 2007.  You will likely want to read the entire series, as I do, if you enjoy historical romance.  The “Mountain Song Legacy” is a definite recommendation.  This book is appropriate for all ages of readers.

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