Guilty of Stealing His Heart by Nancy Lynn White
Nancy Lynn White’s debut novel Guilty of Stealing His Heart: Never Say You Love Me combines historical fiction, murder mystery, western romance and inspirational genres into one well-blended page-turner of a story.
Set in America’s mid-West just before the Civil War, the novel offers a nicely gritty sense of how the issues that made up life from December 1859 through December 1860 might have looked and felt — northern versus southern views of slavery, old-time bank robberies, women’s precarious status vis-à-vis men and their own personal safety in the vastly untamed Wild West.
With the twists of a good murder mystery, the plot revolves around a feisty young woman who goes from glowing bride to maligned suspect in a bank robbery and related murder of a Pinkerton agent, both acts her new husband seems to have committed. A Pinkerton agent, best friend of the murder victim, alternates between keeping the beautiful young woman safe from danger and wondering if she committed the murder. And a 12-year-old street urchin pops up with his own desperate attempts to both hide from and help the adults around him.
A Young Woman’s Long Trek West
The story opens with an 1844 preamble in which 5-year-old Carrie’s German immigrant parents dump Carrie off at an Ohio orphanage. She survives by quickly learning English — with the help of fellow orphan Ruth — and acquires cooking skills to avoid working in the hot laundry room.
Twelve pages in, the real story begins when Columbus banker Philipp Wagner wins 21-year-old Carrie’s hand in a marriage that lasts two weeks. Wagner is arrested for robbing the local bank and Pinkerton agent Hank Lipton is killed in the round-up — and Columbus townspeople implicate Carrie in both.
Betrayal was a repeat offense for her; her mother left her first. Philipp’s brimstone-ish horrific betrayal left her as soul-crushed as the first time.
Swearing off men, Carrie decides with Ruth to adopt all the orphans they can afford and move to San Francisco. Carrie gets freedom papers for Ruth — Ruth is Black and Missouri has slave-state status so such papers are required — and sends her on the 1700-mile trek to California with their two newly adopted daughters. Carrie will follow and earn extra money along the way as a cook for the Pony Express office in Nebraska.
Finding Love in Unexpected Places
Then young Billy drops into her life and his neediness calls out to her. Carrie takes him in and reads him her rules: Trust no one. Keep your word. Don’t abide liars. Lead a Christian life.
At the same time, the handsome, just-retired Pinkerton agent JT Grant also enters her life, privately hoping Carrie will lead him to whoever killed his Pinkerton buddy Hank Lipton. But like Carrie feels about Billy, JT cannot help but care for and bail Carrie out of dire situations. After all, traveling alone out West was not safe for a woman in 1860. “There’s no law west of St Louis and no God west of Fort Smith.”
Sensuous details of daily life in those days add to the read. Carrie steeps dried orange rind left over from summer to enjoy spiced tea in the winter and cures headaches with powders and cannabis tea. As a Pony Express cook in Nebraska, she wins hearts with her hot cornbread, made special by the inclusion of sugar and bacon grease. The characters travel a large swath of America, from Covington, Kentucky where the pain of slavery is more visible than in Ohio, to Big Sandy, Nebraska, with its “endless expanse of grasslands,” and on to New Orleans with its rich gumbo, Creole accents, and music in the streets, before crossing the Mississippi River to Texas.
Satisfying and Romantic Read
The cavalier subtext to White’s portrayal of the times brings a smile. Says one town official speaking to JT and other Pinkerton agents: “I don’t know about you, Pinkerton men, but I like my prisoners to be guilty before I string them up.” In another romantic passage with JT tending to Carrie “he scooped her up fluidly like a cowboy who has handled hay bales for years.”
The strength of Guilty of Stealing His Heart appears in how convincingly the lives of disparate characters blend together, thanks to a thoughtful sense of character motivation and plausible plotting. Unexpected twists and turns compel reading on to a satisfying whodunnit surprise and a romantic happily-ever-after ending.
About the Author:
Nancy Lynn White was born in Washington, D.C. into the nomadic life of a military family. She has one beautiful daughter and two of the most-loved grandchildren on the planet. She graduated from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio with a B.A. in English/Professional Writing. She is now self-employed as a freelance writer. She has the following creative non-fiction short stories published in magazines: “The Boss from Hell”, Work Literary Magazine, November 2014; “You’re Safer in a Plane Than a Car”, Shatter the Looking Glass Literary Magazine, January 2015; “Sippin’ Bourbon Dressing”, Good Ole Days Magazine, December 2016.
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