Hearts Set Free by Jess Ledermen

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Hearts Set Free: An Epic Tale of Love, Faith, and the Glory of God’s Grace
Series: A Standalone
Publisher: Indie Publication (March 12, 2019)

Review by Mae Clair

Hearts Set Free is a beautiful literary novel that follows three different sets of characters in three different time periods. Because the story arc of the central character spans a lifetime, all eventually end up in the same place. The journey from beginning to end takes the reader from the Alaskan Territory of 1925 to contemporary New York with pitstops in Paris, Seattle, Flanders Fields, and Leavenworth Prison among others. Eventually, all timelines converge in Las Vegas, where the bulk of the story takes place—past and contemporary.

The novel is rife with historical background, especially the squalid years of the Great Depression and the building of the Hoover Dam. Fictional characters cross paths with historical figures like Albert Einstein, and Bugsy Siegel. The blend of science and faith (used beautifully) is most notable in Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian physicist-priest. According to notes in the author’s Afterward, he is “among the greatest men in the history of science” but also “virtually unknown to the general public.”

Some reviewers had problems keeping track of the characters/story arcs as not all chapters are headed with a place setting or POV character. I read a lot of dual timeline novels and had no trouble. It also helps that chapters devoted to the central character (Luke) are in first person POV, while all others are relayed in third. A standout for me was David Gold, a boxer known as “the pummelin’ preacher” who leaves the ring to become pastor of the Church of the Hearts Set Free.

Secondary characters are every bit as compelling as the primaries. Mr. Skull, a bald, in-your-face colossus of a man who talks with a lisp gets his own short, but engrossing arc—definitely one of my favorites. Yes, there are a lot of characters, but each is so thoroughly fleshed out they quickly grow familiar.

Most are confronted with a choice between good and evil, faith in God vs. embracing worldly pleasures. A hotel in contemporary Las Vegas cleverly serves as a type of “Babylon,” while obstacles in the past include corruption and greed.

The writing is at times gritty, others lyrical, always immersive.

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David told us of our Heavenly father, who spoke the world into being, and I imagined a universe suddenly ablaze with light, and the earth, newly formed, with its roiling, wine-dark seas. I saw mountains heaving up from the deep, shoots breaking through the planet’s crust and spreading into emerald canopies, and then the swarming, teeming, roaring, bleating panoply of animal life.

Hearts Set Free, by Jess Ledermen

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Throughout, a message of faith pervades the chapters—never preachy, never overdone, words to make you think.

Take these examples:

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“Oh, Jesus will play utter havoc with your common sense! It’s in following Him in the hardest things that we first understand what it means to take a leap of faith. Someone once said that it requires a dash of divine madness to become His disciple. Perhaps so. Certainly, by the logic of the world, the saints must seem quite mad.”

And…

“They’ll be no theology tests on Judgement Day,” the pastor concurred. “Just this: did we trust in the one perfect hero who ever walked the earth?”

And, finally…

“Science is the exercise of human reason to understand the workings of Creation. It reveals the majesty of our Lord; anyone who has seen photographs of the galaxies and nebulae, such as you show in your documentaries, understands what the Psalmist meant when he wrote, the heavens declare the glory of God. By itself, science cannot speak to meaning; that is the province of faith. Faith does not contradict science—it goes where science rightly fears to tread.”

Hearts Set Free, by Jess Ledermen

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Bottom line—if you enjoy intelligent, well-written fiction with a strong historical and faith-based slant, this sweeping epic of a book is not to be missed. I give Hearts Set Free five enthusiastic fish. Highly recommended reading!

I purchased the Kindle version of Hearts Set Free.