...from the publisher....
Beloved, bestselling author of Amish fiction, Wanda E. Brunstetter takes readers on a journey in 1850 along the California Trail.
Only the brave—or foolhardy—would attempt a cross-country journey late in the season. Three wagons meet up in Independence, Missouri, in April 1850, and their owners decide to keep forging ahead despite many setbacks and delays. December finds them in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when a sudden snowstorm traps them, obscuring the trail.
Cynthia Cooper is traveling with her mother and the man she has promised to marry. But as Christmas is upon them and they are hunkered down in a small cabin, she is forced to reevaluate her reasons for planning to marry fellow-traveler Walter Prentice. When a widowed father heading to a California ranch and a gold prospector both show an interest in Cynthia, she weighs her dreams for marriage alongside her responsibility to care for her mother. Can love win over her timid heart?
....my thoughts.....
If you enjoy reading Wanda Brunstetter's books you will also enjoy A Christmas Prayer. Many women kept diaries in covered wagons along the trail west. What a treasure if I found one among my grandparents things when I was young. I enjoyed reading Cynthia's accounts in this story while the characters came alive as they chopped wood, argued and learned to work and live together in order to survive under unimaginable circumstance.
Each person had a reason for their journey. After months of enduring hardships these reasons shifted. Certain plans were no longer concrete. I enjoyed the resiliency and strength of character as it emerged for Cynthia. She began as a young woman eager to find security with Walter to emerging into a strong woman ready to strike out on her own if need be.
We are so used to Wanda Brunstetter writing Amish fiction that this book is a wonderful surprise. I recommend A Christmas Prayer as a gift-worthy book for anyone on your gift list who loves historical fiction and a copy for yourself!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are connections between online friends!