What indie author Jenny Lloyd has accomplished with the publication of Leap The Wild Water is nothing short of gorgeous brilliance. With both delicate and harsh brush strokes, Ms. Lloyd paints a moving and beautiful portrait of lives trying to be lived against an early 19th century Welsh backdrop. This is a time when women were considered little more than the property of fathers or husbands, given lives that left them anchored to the family home, preparing meals, doing the wash, with no hope of escape—especially for those without financial means.

Young Megan Jones seeks to break those confining chains of familial servitude by marrying the man with whom she has long been in love. Megan has secrets, though; secrets that could bring shame and shunning upon the woman and her family should news get around.

With wonderful description, Jenny Lloyd builds a tale of love and loss, of pregnancy outside of marriage in an era where such events were viewed through judgmental eyes, of hope and redemption, and the chance of a better life. But this is also a bleak story at times, sharing in the hopeless struggles women of the era often engaged in, usually ending up on the losing side.

Even Morgan Jones, the brother of Megan, fights a daily battle just to keep the family farm from failing, possibly forcing the Jones’s into the streets.

This story is not a fast-pace ride; it is a steady rhythmic tale that captures the harsh living those who came before us were meant to endure. Leap The Wild Water is a fantastic example of solid storytelling, never once veering into that territory of the boring. This is well written and well researched, lending a taste of authenticity splashed across each and every page. I can and do recommend this novel to anybody who appreciates brilliant authors. Jenny Lloyd is certainly one of my new favorites.