Book Review, The River Rose, and a giveaway!

I have to tell you about this great book that I just read!  I was sent this book to review and I am so glad!  I have read a lot of Gilbert Morris's books, but The River Rose was one of the best!  It is the second book in the Water Wheel series, but it is a stand alone book.  I have not read the first book, The River Queen, yet, but I am going to remedy that quickly!
The The River Rose is about a man and woman who do not know each other, and they inherit equal shares in a paddle wheel boat.  They have to decide if they want to keep the boat and work it or sell it and split the proceeds.
Jeanne Bettencourt, a young Christian widow, has not had an easy time raising her daughter on her own.  She was raised on a steamer, so the Helena Rose is a God-send for her.
Clint Hardin, a single prizefighter/machinist, has inherited the other part of the steamer.  He does not know anything about boats but wants to run the steamer.  He is a known ladies man, and Jeanne is wary of all men.
Gilbert Morris does a great weaving these two opposite's lives together to become a successful team.  He has a surprise ending.  It is a great book so be sure to read it!

Here is a video interview with Gilbert Morris about the book:  http://youtu.be/kuNkvCqhPTM
I have a link to the first chapter of the book, so please be sure to read it for yourself!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/87882776/The-River-Rose-by-Gilbert-Morris-Chapter-1

Here are a few of his interview questions about the book:

How do you do your historical research?

I think it can be easy to do too much research, just as it can be a mistake to do too little. Some writers are so anxious the give the historical background, that they forget the story. My own problem is to do a good job with research and with the story.

How do you manage to keep your dialogue true to the time period without allowing it to sound stilted?

Reading a great deal of Dickens, for example, will carry over into the writer’s work. There is a danger that all of a writer’s characters will sound alike, which makes for bad fiction. I always try to find some characteristic that will set a character apart, perhaps bad grammar or a pronounced regional accent.

Your novels have a number of female characters with red hair and green eyes. Is that based on a real person?

Got lots of red hair in my family, so I always like redheads! No green eyes. I just get tired of trying, in a book with forty characters, to give them eyes that differ. Blue, brown, green. What other colors can eyes be?

I did say of one shady character, “He had eyes the color of spit.” Now, really, that character had to be evil!

What fascinates you most about 1850s Mississippi?

It was a dramatic time in American history. The Civil War, the rise of modern transportation, the beginning of our industrial growth.

How did you decide to set your story on a steamer?

When I was a boy, I lived for a time in Helena, Arkansas. The river then was still thick with the sternwheelers, and I would sit for hours on the bank of the river and watch them, and riding on one was a thrill.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

                My website and blog are at http://www.gilbertmorris.com

Subscribe to my blog’s feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/GilbertMorris

Sign up for my e-newsletter (for subscriber-only giveaways and advance notice of my upcoming novels): http://gilbertmorris.com/news.htm

                Facebook page: facebook.com/gilbertmorrisbooks

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/gilbertmorris/

Twitter: @gilbert_morris - https://twitter.com/#!/gilbert_morris

Now for the giveaway, would you like to win your own book?  It's easy!  Just leave me a comment letting me know what you would name a steamer if you owned one?  For a second entry, follow Gilbert Morris's blog, and let me know in a separate comment.  I will leave the giveaway open for one week, June 11 I will draw the winner!

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

Missy

I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from B&H Publishing Group. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.