Whence Came a Prince by Liz Curtis Higgs

After devouring the first 2 books in this series, I knew I’d love this third and final book. Here’s my book review for Whence Came a Prince.

My history with Whence Came a Prince

This is the 3rd book in the Lowlands of Scotland series. My sister in law had lent me all three books last summer. I breezed through the first two books (Thorn in My Heart is the first, Fair is the Rose is the second) rather quickly and got distracted by my TRB list for several months (said no bookish person ever…) before returning to Whence Came a Prince for the culmination to a riveting story.

Plot lines

The whole Lowlands of Scotland series is a retelling of the Biblical story of Jacob, Rachel, & Leah. Whence Came a Prince starts exactly where the 2nd book leaves off with no review of what’s happened so far. It’s set in 1800ish in the Scottish Lowlands and it is beautifully written.

The story in the Bible only gives us a few short paragraphs where Liz Curtis Higgs unfolds the story over 3 books at about 1600 pages, so she’s got plenty of room for creative liberty, while still maintaining Biblical themes of love, forgiveness, and truth. The plot took so many twists and turns that even 1600ish pages went quickly.

Characters in Whence Came a Prince

The characters were really well developed and even when they made bad choices or the storyline took an unexpected turn, it was still hard to hate them. Well, there was one character that was easy to hate, but otherwise, I loved them all.

We see gentle Leana wronged and mistreated when the kirk (church) declared her marriage to Jamie null and void. Rose finds some much-needed maturity and eventually grows into a loving wife for Jamie. Of course, all this scandal can’t take place without at least some emotional squabbles. But in the end, the love triangle team up to lay a plan that will inevitably promise peace and happiness for all of them.

Yes, but how does it end?!

The story culminates in a beautiful way with redemption and forgiveness and shows the characters going through hard stuff but doing it true to their character. Sometimes that was gracefully and sometimes that was messing up and making bad choices, but all the while, the underlying theme of God’s grace and goodness shining through in every situation.

Well done, Ms Higgs! I loved it.

For this review and many more, plus what I’m reading now, visit me on GoodReads. Thanks so much for checking out the Collective!
– Sarah

If you enjoyed this review, here are a few others that you might like:

• Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton & James Patterson
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• The Sweet Life In Paris by David Lebovitz