Change of Heart

by Faith Baldwin

Book by Baldwin, Faith

315 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Faith Baldwin attended private academies and finishing schools, and in 1914-16 she lived in Dresden, Germany. She married Hugh H. Cuthrell in 1920, and the next year she published her first novel, Mavis of Green Hill. Although she often claimed she did not care for authorship, her steady stream of books belies that claim; over the next 56 years she published more than 85 books, more than 60 of them novels with such titles as Those Difficult Years (1925), The Office Wife (1930), Babs and Mary Lou (1931), District Nurse (1932), Manhattan Nights (1937), and He Married a Doctor (1944). Her last completed novel, Adam's Eden, appeared in 1977.

Typically, a Faith Baldwin book presents a highly simplified version of life among the wealthy. No matter what the difficulties, honour and goodness triumph, and hero and heroine are united. Evil, depravity, poverty, and sex found no place in her work, which she explicitly intended for the housewife and the working girl. The popularity of her writing was enormous. In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, she published five novels in magazine serial form and three earlier serials in volume form and saw four of her works made into motion pictures, for an income that year in excess of $315,000. She also wrote innumerable stories, articles, and newspaper columns, no less ephemeral than the novels.

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This World War II-era novel, about the romance between a young woman and a returning soldier, reminded me a lot of Emilie Loring's wartime novels. Ms. Baldwin however presents a much more worldly-wise picture than Ms. Loring ever did. Change of Heart is also more character-driven than any of Loring's novels. Complex portraits of the heroine and her parents, and less so, the hero, make for a compelling read that contrasts sharply with Ms. Loring's more plot-driven romantic suspense novels. Nevertheless, I found myself comparing and contrasting the two styles as I read and can appreciate both approaches.

In Change of Heart, Carol Hillary lives very much in the shadow of her famous parents. Her mother, Helen Hillary, a war correspondent, is a woman who demands to be, and usually is, the center of attention. When Helen returns from the front with a war hero in tow, she never expects for him to change from being dazzled by her, to falling in love with Carol. But when it does happen, Helen has no scruple about putting roadblocks in the way of their happiness. Helen Hillary, approaching fifty but holding tight to her youth and appeal, is an easy character to dislike. In many ways, she's the villain of the piece--her selfish inability to consider the needs of anyone else before her own causes all her problems--yet Baldwin manages to make her a sympathetic character.

Overall, I liked this story a lot. Baldwin creates a complete world within her stories and I very much enjoyed being caught up in it.

[Saralyn]

Continuing my seesaw relationship with Baldwin's books. I love her easy to dive into worlds. Her characters tend to be interesting. I love getting a little insight into what the world looked like at the time the book was published--things like rationing are mentioned as a matter of course. This particular story didn't really do it for me. Most of the characters aren't likeable or sympathetic. I did find some of the relationship complexity interesting. For all this is a romance, it's quite different than most I've picked up. Some redeeming qualities, but definitely not a new favorite.