Anji Baard Moen, recently widowed in Norway, returns to North Dakota with her children. She quickly settles back into life in the familiar surroundings of Blessing, teaching in the high school and writing articles for the Blessing Gazette. In the midst of an unexpected crisis, Anji is thrust into a role she never imagined. And almost without her even being aware, an old friendship begins to show signs of developing into something more."
Lauraine Snelling was one of the first christian authors I read, many years ago and I always loved her writing. In fact, I also got my oldest girl hooked on her children's books back then. I will have to say that it has been awhile since I've read any of her books and in all fairness I didn't realize this was Book 3 of a series. In the past, when picking up a book that was part of a series, I found it very easy to follow the story line; I am sad to say this wasn't the case with this book. I immediately felt that I had missed the initial story and was out of place. There were two saving bits of story line in this book-the first one was that there was mention of Rosebud Reservation in North Dakota and my husband has ancestors that lived there and it was so fun to read about it in the book(though it was just a mention) and the second story line was about a Diphtheria outbreak-this immediately perked my interest because when my mom was a girl in San Francisco she actually had Diphtheria and was quarantined to her home; she told me about the large signs they put on the front door etc. I tried to research when this occurred, I believe it would have been somewhere between 1916-1922.
The story line was somewhat confusing for me and it wasn't until I was more than half way through the book that I felt I had a good handle on all the characters. I haven't felt that way about a story before and I can tell there will be a 4th book in this series by the way it ended. I have read many positive reviews on this story and feel it is because the readers started from book 1. I was truly disappointed with this story. I can't honestly recommend this book, unless you are an avid reader of Lauraine Snelling's books.
Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing, provided this book to me without any compensation in exchange for my honest review.
Noreen
I read some of Lauraine Snelling's early books; they were of particular interest to me as my ancestors all came from Norway to the Canadian prairies.
ReplyDelete