The Green Veil, a sweeping historical romance, follows ten years of the life of Colette Palmer beginning in 1841when she is fourteen years old. Her parents decide to leave Michigan and head into the forests of Wisconsin Territory where her father can realize his dream of owning his own saw mill.
Like Promise Me This, the Green Veil is more historical than romance, more coming of age and learning hard life lessons than the pleasures of first-time love or even the courting dance of romance novels. By its very length, the Green Veil covers lots of ground with what, I suspect, shall be memorable characters.
Colette is my favorite type of heroine, smart, beautiful but unaware of it, capable and kind. But she makes the mistakes that are needed to lead her closer to God and more dependent on Him as life leaves the path she'd expected to walk. Still, by the end of the novel, she shows a determination to see through her mistakes and to allow God to bless her for her faithfulness.
There are three men in Colette's life (beyond her dad and God) who mold her into the woman she becomes: Nase, her childhood infactuation; Joe, her best friend in the new territory; and Harris Eastman, her father's business partner.
Now, Naomi uses one the of fiction conventions that I least like by opening the story with a prologue that actually takes place later in the book. I dislike this means because I feel manipulated as a reader by a high-powered scene before being tossed into a slow-moving story. This is the case with the Green Veil, too. Except, as I try to picture how the story would have read without the prologue, I think it would have read as a different story. For one thing, I would have been surprised by more of plot twists, but I would have lost the underlying tension that I felt throughout the entire book because of the prologue. Whereas without the prologue, I may have dismayed at Colette's choices, with the prologue I knew they were choices that were going to lead her to a dark place … and I kept reading because I wanted to see her through that dark place.
Naomi Musch writes with clean, engaging language — great descriptions of the Wisconsin woods, wonderful historical information about the logging industry in the 19c, and a deep, tugging theme of perseverance and surrender. The Green Veil is not humorous, quick escapism. It may even challenge your ideas of marriage, friendship, and the importance of seeking God in every decision you make.
Check it out at Desert Breeze Publishing. She has a second book out in this series, and a third which will release soon.
