Almira Dean has just found out that her teaching position has been eliminated. That bit of news comes right after she finds out her landlady wants her room to give to a niece. A former classmate has come to town to promote the mission back in the Appalachians where his church is. He asks Mira to marry him and come back into the hills with him to teach at the mission school.
Ann H Gabhart has created a lovely story about the backwoods people of the Appalachians and their lives in the early 1900s. This particular novel is one that is one of the more enjoyable books I have read this year. What begins as a marriage of convenience becomes a truly loving union. Some of the children in the book are favorite characters. The feels I had for Ada June were just too much at times. She was alone in the world and was moved from pillar to post. She spent most of her time outside in the woods or in a cave. When Mira and Gordon offer her a bed to sleep in and regular meals, she begins to blossom in ways that are most rewarding. Mira has a loving touch for all the children in the area and wants only the best for them--even the most misbehaved ones.

The Song of Sourwood Mountain is populated with the churchy busy-bodies and the recalcitrant husbands who go through life just trying to live. Most of these people don't have two pennies to rub together, but somehow they make life work. These people are not afraid to work hard and keep goods stored up for the lean times. The one telling point in their lives was the way they cared for others in need. It was a beauty to watch the way they worked together.

The book is easy to read and digest, but more importantly it is engaging to the reader. Five Stars, Two Thumbs up and a bluebird of happiness to sing outside your window.

Revell Publishing provided the copy I read for this review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

First - thank you Revell Publishing for this ARC of The Song of Sourwood a mountain.

A great read of a sweet story. The story is as much about the people in Sourwood as the main couple.

The star is Ada June a child in need of a family. This is a feel good story that makes you care about all of the characters. I highly recommend.

I just reviewed The Song of Sourwood Mountain by Ann H. Gabhart. #TheSongofSourwoodMountain #NetGalley

I reviewed this book for the Historical Novel Society, and per their policy, I cannot post the review until after it's published on their website on May 1st. I will update it then.

An audacious proposal!

New-to-me historical fiction romance author Ann H. Gabhart takes readers back in time to the Appalachian mountains and introduces us to her main character, Mira Dean, who is suffering from a broken heart.

Five years ago Mira lost her fiance to tuberculosis and has allowed her dreams of marriage and children to die along with him. She plods along in a mundane life as a school teacher in Louisville, Kentucky and is content with her lot. When a childhood friend, missionary Gordon Covington, passes through town he proposes a marriage of convenience to Mira and asks her to consider accompanying him to Sourwood to teach the hill children. Indignantly, she refuses.

Suddenly, things go wrong in her life; she loses her apartment and her job. It forces Mira to reconsider her options. Perhaps she was too hasty in rejecting Gordon.

Gabhart’s novel challenged me to see things from a different perspective. Sometimes when things don’t go our way, we get negative. Gabhart wants readers to consider that perhaps the challenges are meant to be in our journey and are part of a bigger picture. I loved seeing Mira’s relationship develop and see that her dreams are within reach, just not in the way she had imagined them. It was good to be reminded of the need for courage in unsettling experiences. Mira’s courage enabled her to agree to follow Gordon and accept his strange request. There’s a spiritual lesson in that for Christians. I welcomed the opportunity to relinquish control; not easy for this control freak! I enjoyed the juxtaposition that became obvious when reading about the harsh existence of mountain life and the warm, welcoming hill folk. I appreciated this spectacular novel that reminded me of God’s timing and plan.

This sweet romance and marriage of convenience is one Christian romance readers will want on their TBR list. Watch for the references to bluebirds!

I was gifted this copy by Revell and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

This was a great historical fiction book. I really enjoyed the story and it was very heartwarming. I also really enjoyed the romance.

Living in Louisville, Mira attends church one Sunday and hears a visiting preacher talk about his mountain mission in Eastern Kentucky and realizes the man in the pulpit is a schoolmate from her childhood. Gordon approaches her after the service with a startling proposal. Come to Sourwood, Kentucky to teach in the soon-completed schoolhouse as his wife.

Thinking she would never marry after her intended died about five years ago, Mira wonders if Sourwood is where the Lord wants her to live and work and possibly raise a family of her own with a willing, godly husband. She doubts whether she would accept Gordon's proposal, both to teach and to marry him.

The plot felt during the proposal scene like St. John asking Jane Eyre to become his wife before going to the missionary fields of India, and portions of the novel when Mira arrives in Sourwood are similar to the novel Christy, about another young city woman teaching in a mountain school.

From a Christian perspective, some might not enjoy the confusion of God and Jesus Christ or references to a couple's toddlers dying as heaven needing more angels.

What a great story to become immersed in, and once I was I never wanted to leave.

Ann Gabhart is a master story teller, and this one sure didn't disappoint.

This is a faith based fictional read, and I loved how even though we don't want to do something, God has other plans, and oh how rich our lives become because of him.

We become totally involved in the lives of these mountain people, their language and customs. Some were a bit difficult, but they give a lot when sometimes they have very little!

I loved how they came on the Preacher's wedding night and the very different welcome they give the couple! The children are so hungry for learning, and we are there when the school opens!

Now I hope for more by this author!

I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Revel, and was not required to give a positive review.

This was a wonderfully sweet story! I loved watching the characters draw close to one another and to God. The back and forth of the story telling between Mira, Gordon, and Ada June was very well done.

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program which in no way influenced my review of the book.
I have to admit that I love a good mountain story from around the turn of the twentieth century, and this book qualifies. It also helps if the book has some humorous moments, which this book does. Here we have the delightful story of a single woman school teacher who will soon qualify as an "old maid", Mira Dean. Mira goes to church one Sunday, and before she leaves, mountain pastor Gordon Covington has proposed marriage to her. Although they attended the same school as children, they never really knew each other. Nonetheless, Gordon has prayed for a wife and a school teacher for the soon to be completed school constructed next to his church. Mira would answer this prayer perfectly, Naturally, Mira finds his proposal shocking and immediately turns him down although she does promise to pray that he will find the person he seeks. She returns home to eat her lunch alone and then, surprisingly to her, wonders if he might knock on her door that very afternoon. She still has no intention of marrying him, however. To go any further with the plot would give too much away.
Suffice it to say that Ann Gabhart has done an excellent job of portraying mountain life as it was then and also mountain people and their resentment of people from "outside". The book has heartbreaking moments and also sweet ones. I think that both men and women would enjoy reading the book and give it a two thumbs up recommendation.