Book Review: Her Secret Song by Mary Connealy

Her Secret Song by Mary Connealy is the third book in the Brides of Hope Mountain series about three sisters raised on a mountain and forbidden to see the outside world. All the characters in the series appear in all books, and there’s an over-arching plot thread throughout.

MINOR SPOILER: At the end of the first book, mountain woman Ursula Nordegren, eldest of the three Nordegren sisters, made plans to spend the winter in a remote, newly-discovered house on her mountain. Her hope was to escape the “dangerous” Warden family taking up residence in her childhood home. I read the first book in this series and missed the second, but it wasn’t hard to catch up.

Ursula was raised to avoid strangers at all cost, because they brought disease and death. Unfortunately, living alone for months in a cave-like dwelling nearly drove her crazy with loneliness.

Jake “Wax” Mosby is a man with a dubious reputation. He’s also a man with a moral code and a desire to leave the life he’s been leading. Badly injured, he’s found and tended by a singing “angel” with the loveliest voice he’s ever heard.

For me, Mary Connealy’s books are dessert. They’re sweet and enjoyable without being heavy. Yet, there are always crumbs to pick up. In this case, it’s that we can sometimes allow the actual fear of something to cause just as much damage as that thing we fear.

As for this particular book, it ends the series well, and I truly enjoyed the epilogue. However, the first book in the series stood out more to me. Maybe, at that point, the premise was more unique, but it also had that spark of fun that Ms. Connealy is famous for. While this one had moments, particularly with Wax and Ursula’s opinions of Mitch—the hero from the second book— it didn’t sparkle for me in that same way.

So, I’ll recommend it with 4.5 stars.

Have you read this book or the whole series? What did you think?