Hello everyone!
For those of you who don't know, this is a series of Christian books about a schoolteacher in the Canadian West around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, who meets and falls in love with a member of the Royal North West Mounted Police.
That was its title at the time, though nowadays they are called Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
I first found the books because I was looking for the author's original series, Love Comes Softly, but ended up getting the others instead, because, Canada.
And since for some reason Hallmark has decided to deviate so strongly away from the original premise, it felt really good to go back in and remind myself why I fell in love with the story in the first place.
After all, a teacher and a Mountie on the frontier sounds like an adventure, doesn't it?
When Calls the Heart has that and a whole lot more.
Now because I've covered the topic a number of times over the years, you'll be able to find links at the bottom of the page to take you right where you need to go, depending on what you're looking for, but there should be a number of them, so have a look!
In the meantime, let's check in with When Calls the Heart directly.
Elizabeth Thatcher is a young schoolteacher in Toronto, a member of a wealthy family who doesn't HAVE to work but she enjoys it and believes it's her calling. When her estranged half-brother Jonathan writes from the newly-formed province of Alberta, explaining they're in need of teachers and that he had immediately thought of Elizabeth, it takes some soul-searching, but eventually she decides that, yes, she will answer the call.
So she packs up her belongings and heads west, where she meets and immediately loves this older half-brother of hers whom she hadn't seen in years and years, his wife Mary and their beautiful children, who keep exclaiming that a friend named Dee is either going to visit, or this and that.
Anxious to begin her mission, Elizabeth pressures the school superintendent Mr. Higgings about where her posting will be, but he keeps putting it off until the moment when he explains that, actually, she's going to marry him and not need to teach at all!
Oh yeah, he totally decided that all on his lonesome, by the way.
Firmly and frostily, Elizabeth declines, saying if she wanted marriage she could have stayed in Toronto, and this enrages the super so he sends her into the wilderness of Pine Springs, where she discovers that she will be the first teacher the community has ever had, will live in a modest teacherage, and have to work with students of all level of bare minimum knowledge who have never before even been to school.
Elizabeth accepts the challenge with gusto and finds a rhythm to her teachings, helping each student individually and more, and also encountering some rather funny situations herself.
There are coyotes she first mistakes for wolves and gives them quite the personalities, imagining that they will carry her off into the wilderness; there is the school stove which has a closed dampener and almost sets the school on fire; there are mice in her teacherage; there is also a random bear that shows up out of nowhere.
Through it all, however, Elizabeth finds the strength and ingenuity to persevere, with the help of God (I did say this was a Christian book, remember?) and the community she's a part of.
Part of this community is also one Wynn Delaney whom she recognizes as a friend of Jonathan's from Toronto, and who she instantly likes, but it turns out that he's married and has a young son whom she teaches in her class - but at the same time seems to be making advances towards her person!
Indignant beyond belief as she immediately likes his wife Lydia, Elizabeth gives him the cold shoulder, especially at a lunchbox social the children put on so that they might raise money for one of their friends, Andy, who desperately needs to see a doctor after a flare up of an old injury (a horse kicking him in the head when he was little). Sadly, Andy doesn't make it, and the entire community mourns.
What ALSO happens is that, during her leave back with Jonathan, Elizabeth runs into Wynn - the mysterious Dee!
At this point in time, her sister-in-law sets her straight in that, no, WYNN isn't actually married - he's staying with his brother's wife and son so that his brother may recover at the hospital, but Wynn himself is a Mountie and on leave.
Elizabeth apologizes to the Mountie for her assumptions, which both stun and amuse him, but what can you do, right?
Their relationship strengthens during Christmas break when Elizabeth feigns an ankle sprain so that Wynn might carry her back to the house, though she repents later and admits her fraud because, in the end, honesty is important to her.
Probably one of my favourite book moments is when Wynn looks her right in the eye and tells her he's kinda trained to figure out if an ankle is injured or not - which means he's known the entire time hers was fine, but kept is silent too because he wanted the same thing she did!
Flirting 101 back in the day, y'all.
But with the school year coming to a close, Elizabeth has no idea whether or not she'll be returning to Pine Springs next year, and actually has an encounter with a bear in the woods which causes her to faint. Wynn finds her and takes her back to the teacherage, though not before kissing her to stop another panic attack from beginning.
However, being a guy, and convinced a wife isn't something a Mountie should have because of long, lonely postings in the North, he apologizes and says he only did it to help her, not because he wanted to or anything.
This prompts Elizabeth to pack up for Toronto, because at this point she has quite strong feelings about the man and if he isn't ready for them, so be it. She's actually at the train station when Wynn intercepts her and explains himself better: that he actually DID want to kiss her but he doesn't think a life of a Mountie's wife is fair to her, even though he loves her. And right there at the station, he proposes.
Elizabeth says yes, and that's where the story ends for that first book!
It's a lovely one, too, full of Alberta and the early communities, how they struggled to establish themselves, and the love story is subtle and gentle until it culminates in the proposal. You have to remember the times: it was not a done thing for a young woman to be seen walking out with anyone unless her intentions with him were serious, so it makes perfect sense that Wynn's proposal would seem hasty to us, but is actually on point.
The story of the teacher who has to adapt to a less stylish life and learns that she loves it, and never wants to return to the East but stay closer to her beloved Rocky Mountains, is one that touched my heart deeply.
Also, Wynn as a character is someone you can easily fall for yourself with his morals and strength of personality.
The children depicted are absolutely lovely and then some, and in all honesty I reached for the second book of the series right away after finishing this one.
I dare you not to do the same!
xx
*image not mine
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