Skip to main content

An Uncertain Choice by Jody Hedlund: A Book Review

An Uncertain Choice
Author: Jody Hedlund
Genre: YA, Christian, Romance, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Zondervan
Release Date: 2015
Pages: 252
Source: Personal Collection
Synopsis: Due to her parents' promise at her birth, Lady Rosemarie has been prepared to become a nun on the day she turns eighteen. Then, a month before her birthday, a friend of her father's enters the kingdom and proclaims her parents' will left a second choice--if Rosemarie can marry before the eve of her eighteenth year, she will be exempt from the ancient vow.

     Before long, Rosemarie is presented with the three most handsome and brave knights in the land. But when the competition for her heart seemingly results in a knight playing foul, she begins to wonder if the convent is the best place after all. If only one of the knights--the one who appears the most guilty--had not already captured her heart.

     My Review: An Uncertain Choice is a medieval Bachelorette. Lady Rosemarie is forced to enter the convent when she turns eighteen. She is reluctantly prepared for her life as a nun, when her godfather, the Duke of Rivenshire finds a new alternative to Rosemarie’s fate. If she can marry for true love before she turns eighteen then she would not have to enter the convent. The duke then brings Rosemarie to his three knights hoping that she will fall in love with one of them. Each of the knights court her until Rosemarie can find which knight is her true love. Can Rosemarie escape her destiny to enter the convent or does God have something else planned for her?

     I did not really like Rosemarie all that much. She seems like an undeveloped character. All we know is that she cares for the poor and is really beautiful. Other than that, she comes across as a selfish person. She thinks about herself all the time. She does not seem to care for other people or ask the knights and the duke for what they want. She does not ask them what she will do for them, rather it is what they will do for her. I really did not see her as a caring person. Instead, her compassion for the poor seemed to be rather shallow, for she is wanted to be seen as a great lady to her people. I also did not think that she was smart, for some of the choices she made were not bright. Also, Rosemarie was a damsel-in-distress and always needed saving. Thus, I found her to be a weak character and was not given much depth.

      Overall, this book is about love and choices. The message of the book is that it is our hardest trials where we see God’s love. The characters were one-dimensional, and there was not really much of a plot in this novel. Instead much of the story revolves around her courtship with three men to see whom she likes the best. The story was also very predictable. Another thing that I did not like about this book was that the ending had an unnecessary cliffhanger. For those of you who are looking for a light, quick, Christian medieval  love story, you might enjoy this book. However, this book falls short with other YA, Christian medieval romances. I recommend Melanie Dickerson’s or Dina L. Sleiman’s books instead. 

Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) by Alhena Gadotti: A Book Review

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) Author: Alhena Gadotti Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography Publisher: Routledge Publication Date: May 2, 2025 Pages: 132 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess offers the first comprehensive biography of Enheduana, daughter of Sargon of Agade and one of the most intriguing, yet elusive, women from antiquity.      Royal princess, priestess, and alleged author, Enheduana deserves as much attention as her martial relatives. A crucial contributor to her father’s military ambitions, Enheduana nonetheless wielded religious and economic power, as evidenced by primary and secondary sources. Even more interestingly, Enheduana remained alive in the cultural memory of those who came after her, so much so that works attributed to her were integrated into the scribal curriculum centuries after her death. This book aims to situate Enheduana in her own histor...

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World's First Author by Sophus Helle: A Book Review

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author Author: Sophus Helle Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion Publisher: Yale University Press Release Date: 2024 Pages: 228 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: The complete poems of the priestess Enheduana, the world’s first known author, newly translated from the original Sumerian.      Enheduana was a high priestess and royal princess who lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, about 2300 BCE. Not only does Enheduana have the distinction of being the first author whose name we know, but the poems attributed to her are hymns of great power. They are a rare flash of the female voice in the often male-dominated ancient world, treating themes that are as relevant today as they were four thousand years ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature.       This book is ...

The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters #1) by Lucinda Riley: A Book Review

The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters #1) Author: Lucinda Riley Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Publisher: Atria Release Date: 2015 Pages: 463 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, “Atlantis”—a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva—having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings. Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to ...