Book Review: My Stubborn Heart

My Stubborn Heart is a wonderful story of love, faith and redemption written by Christian contemporary romance author Becky Wade. 

Wade tells the story of two characters—Kate and Matt—who are in need of something to be restored: Kate needs hope and Matt needs healing. During their journey, they both receive something greater—learning how to trust and wait on the Lord.

The story is set in Redbud, Pennsylvania where Kate Donovan is on a working vacation with her grandmother. The work is to restore the old house she grew up in, a house that was built in the 1800’s. Kate is happy to have a three-month break from work and looks forward to learning more about her family as she spends time with her grandmother working on the restoration of the house. Apart from hard work and a much needed break from her day job, Kate isn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen in her life. So when Matt Jarreau is introduced as the man hired to renovate the house, at first, Kate thinks nothing of him apart from his dashingly handsome looks and the deep sorrow in his eyes. Matt’s sorrow shows up in more than his eyes, it manifests in his actions—he isolates himself from people and all of his interactions while few, are strictly business.

Kate feels compelled to be nice to Matt and to find out the reason for his deep sorrow. What starts out as what feels to Matt like a game of Twenty Questions during their first day working on the house together makes Matt very annoyed with Kate and wishing she’d leave him alone to work in silence. But a persistent Kate is not easily deterred. Instead, she is determined to be Matt’s friend and relieve whatever suffering causes that sorrowful look in his eyes.

What Kate and Matt do not know is that God planned for them to meet at this time and place because they need each other. Matt needs someone to help him to learn how to trust God again after a tragedy that rocked his world and damaged his faith. Since the tragedy, Matt has made a habit of pushing everyone away—friends, family, neighbors. It is just short of a miracle that he even agreed to take on the project of restoring Kate’s family’s old house. While Matt needs healing, Kate needs hope in terms of knowing that God has heard her prayers for God to send her a husband, prayers that she’s offered up to Him since she was in the fourth grade. After several bad relationships, a newly single Kate at the age of 31 has just about given up on love and has started doubting that God has a man for her to date and be happy with much less the man of her dreams to marry. But perhaps God has a deeper reason for Donovan and Kate to be working together on restoring that old house. Perhaps God is doing a bit of restoration of His own with the souls, hopes and dreams of Donovan and Kate. Ultimately, God is teaching these two characters a lesson on faith.

Becky Wade does a delightful job of weaving a story of love, faith and redemption between two characters that need it the most. My Stubborn Heart is a captivating, intriguing read that has the potential to delight the hearts of audiences for decades to come.