Synopsis:
Already repenting of his hasty promise to marry, Captain Ralph Percy
goes to meet the ship full of women that came specifically to provide brides
for the Virginian settlers. When he
meets a proud and cold, but beautiful, young woman and marries her in less than
an hour, he hardly dreams that he has wed the King’s runaway ward, the lovely
Lady Jocelyn Leigh. But the King will
not accept Jocelyn’s hurried marriage and neither will the wicked and
infatuated Lord Carnal. When the king
wants to annul the marriage and force Jocelyn to marry Lord Carnal, what will
happen to Captain Percy and his wife?
One thing I found very sweet in To Have and To Hold is that Captain
Percy is a gentleman if there ever was one.
He is courteous and brave, and the way he constantly risks his life for a
lady who doesn’t care for him is just so wonderful. Another sweet thing is that Ralph Percy,
narrating the story, continually calls Jocelyn ‘Mistress Percy’ and ‘my wife,’
as if he’s saying to Lord Carnal, “She voluntarily married me, in the sight of
God and all honest men, and you will not
get her.” That’s what I like about
Captain Percy. He’s firm, courageous,
gentle, and willing to go any lengths to protect his wife’s honour, even though
she’s his wife only in name.
Of course it doesn’t hurt to be
called Percy (a name that very good heroes happen to have) either. And this is set in 17th century Virginia, so (Bonus
points!) it has quite a few swordfights, in which Captain Percy of course
excels.
But even though he has so many
good points, Ralph Percy doesn’t at all come across as a paragon, or
unrealistic. He’s a thoroughly human man
whom we can sympathise with. Even the
romance angle of the story (between two nearly-paragons) is passionate, tender
and completely sweet. I tend to get
annoyed by mushy romances or foolish infatuations, but true love, between two totally
sympathize-with-able people is one of the most beautiful things on earth.
I’ve already talked a great deal
about Captain Percy, but now I’ll try to talk about the book, because this is a
review of To Have and To Hold, not a
review of Captain Ralph Percy.
Where to begin? Ah, yes.
This is very well-written. It
seems there are many people who agree with me, because in 1900 (the year it was
published) this was the most popular novel in America. Mary Johnston managed to stuff it full of
adventure (runaways, duels, pirates – stuff that would be totally improbable in
one of my novels) but somehow you don’t get around to thinking about that. The amount of intrigue and danger makes for
an absorbing and hard to put down read.
The language in To Have and To
Hold seems authentically 17th century, but still not hard to
understand and, if anything, it enhances the characters.
Talking about characters, I can’t
ignore Jeremy Sparrow. A humble and
dedicated Puritan minister, he still has a very good sense of humour and is a
completely kind and faithful friend. And
I was also very pleased to see Master Rolfe (who married Pocahontas) and his
brother-in-law Nantauquas in the story.
As to Jocelyn, she is definitely a dynamic character and the best advice
I can give you is just to read the book yourself.
Possibly Objectionable Elements:
There is fighting in this book and
therefore some amount of violence and killing.
But it is not gory and, while I wouldn’t give this to young children, it
would not be a problem for older readers.
There are some archaic (usually minced) oaths, but you probably wouldn’t
know unless you looked them up in a dictionary.
There are a few kisses, but the whole falling in love thing is actually
between a married couple (and I find that incredibly sweet.. but that might just be me.)
My advice? If you love history, adventure, or a good
romance, you definitely want to find this book.
Oh yes! And what do I rate it? This is hard... it certainly deserves an 8, but I'll give it a 9, because it deserves that too.
. 
$15 goes a long way!)
