Rivers of the Heart

by Audrey Howard

Beautiful and untameable, Kitty Hayes has only ever loved one man. From the moment she met him, she believed with all her heart that her adopted brother Freddy would one day be her husband. When he chooses to marry her sister instead, it breaks her heart, and she enters into a loveless marriage. It is only when her selfishness leads to an unforgivable accident that she realizes what she has lost—and by then, it may be too late.

Genres: Historical Romance

619 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Audrey Howard was born on 1929 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK, and grew up in St Annes on Sea, Lancashire, where she lives in her childhood home.

Before she began to write she had a variety of jobs, among them hairdresser, model, shop assistant, cleaner and civil servant. In 1981, while living in Australia, she wrote the first of her bestselling novels published since 1984. In 1988, her novel The Juniper Bush won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Reviews

[the bookish lover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rivers of the heart by AUDREY HOWARD
----------- 5/5 stars ---------------

I was so shocked when I found only one review onthis amazing book , what happened to good taste in literature? I absolutely love Rivers of the heart, and would recommend it to anyone out there with a thirst for Contemporary, Romance and simply a good read.

The story is about the beautiful,witty and headstrong Kitty Hayes, the illegitimate daughter of Mrs. Hayes, who was since childhood, in love with Freddy, the illegitimate son of Mr. Hayes. Living together under the same roof, she truly believed that her adopted brother would someday be her husband. Little did she know that a love story was flourishing right under her nose, between Freddy and Ciara, her half-sister. When Kitty witnessed a display of affection between the two lovers, her heart broke and nothing made sense in her head anymore. So when Ben Maddox, the handsome, kind and wealthy gentleman, who was secretly fascinated by her, proposed to marry her she accepted, just to show everyone that she was not drowned in her sorrow. Ben hoped that his untameable wife would someday return his love to him, but when Kitty's selfish behavior leaded to an unforgivable accident, he realised that his wife would never change, and therefor, their marriage was no longer his priority.

I loved reading this book so much, I enjoyed every part of it, and there was no cheesiness or clichés by any means. I wish there were more chapters to this book, the ending left me so thirsty and I just wanted more. Again I would recommend it highly to the Contemporary lovers.

[Anousha · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Don't read this book if you value your sanity.)
This book is about a young stubborn woman, Kitty who lives with her family and is of marrying age but has not received or is interested in receiving any marriage proposal much to her parent's dismay. She is interested in marrying her adoptive brother (red flag) and is waiting for him to propose but then she finds out that he is interested in another woman who is her other sister who is adopted. (These people all have different parents but this shit is still weird). This makes her very sad and so she agrees to marry a guy named Ben who is discreetly in love with her. Now they marry and consummate with Kitty fighting him every step of the way (basically marital rape). Kitty has a very strong character and hates Ben and is in love with her brother. She gets pregnant with Ben's baby but loses that baby because of a horse riding accident. Now, this makes Ben hate her and he starts cheating on his wife whereas Kitty starts going out with her friends to events because she was rejected and she has started falling in love with Ben aka her cheating husband. She soon finds out the reality of her friends after they abuse her maid and she comes back home and then takes her maid to her parent's place where the sick father after finding out about this gets sicker and dies. Now Ben in order to comfort his wife has sex with her and she gets pregnant. Ben breaks up with his mistress and comes back home and after a few problems along the way the two confess their love to each other and the book ends with them together. Also, they have a son in the end.

Guys for your own sanity do not read this book. It was a whole trip and has some other weird stuff as well.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My overwhelming thoughts on this book is that it could have been cut by half and not missed anything from the plot, but Ms Howard tends to follow that trend in quite a few of her books. Having said that, it was still an enjoyable story to read. Kitty, the main character was very unlikeable and hard to take, in fact I spent most of the book not caring what happened to her, but she did have a few redeeming qualities which surfaced as the book progressed fortunately, or I may have given 3 instead of 4 stars. All in all a good read.

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a number of Audrey Howard's novels. They are very good family sagas although, for my taste, sometimes the descriptive text goes on a bit too long and I find my eyes starting to skim read. After reading a dozen of her titles, I started finding them too predictable so have taken a break. That being said, they are still good reads! My favourites of hers would be "Between Friends", "Silence of Strangers", "Ambitions", "Not A Bird Will Sing" and "Angel Meadow".

[Anita Hargreaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scarlett O'Hara of Liverpool, a Victorian tale of arranged marriages. It took ages to read. I didn't like Kitty too much but there was some kindness in her at the end. Her high spirit came across as selfish and spoilt.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book difficult to get through. Audrey Howard would start one topic and then go off on a tangent about something else. By the time she got back to the original topic, I had forgotten how it had started and had to go back and read the beginning topic again.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful story of a family who go through hard times together and apart. The family come to life on the pages and you feel the love and anger of each one of them. Loved it.

[Lynn Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*