Blogging for Books: Northern Lights Trilogy

As a part of the Blogging For Books program, I received a complementary Kindle version of the trilogy in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own.  There are affiliate links in this post.

The Northern Lights Trilogy by Lisa T Bergren

(beware this is a long synopsis)
Set in the late 1800's, this set of 3 Christian historical romance novels follow the lives of Norwegian immigrants as they live and learn in the land of opportunity.

The Captain's Bride - Newlyweds Elsa and Peder Ramstad set out from their small town in Norway to lead a group of fellow immigrants to new lives in Maine.  As a ship captain, Peder has plans to start his own shipyard in America along with his best friend and business partner, Karl.  However, Karl is secretly struggling with a love for his best friend's wife.  Along with them are Elsa's dear friend, Kaatje Jansen, her husband, Soren, who can't seem to keep his eyes or his affections on his own wife, and Elsa's sister Tora, a sneaky, conniving young women who manipulates people to get what she wants.

In an epic story that spans the length of the US and the depth of an ocean, Elsa and Peder learn what true fidelity and faith mean as they learn to live life together as a captain and a captain's wife.

Deep Harbor - Tora Anders is determined to get ahead in life, no matter how much she has to lie, cheat and steal to get there.  Armed with only her good looks and her charm, Tora seeks a job with entreprenuer, Trent Storm as a server in one of his restaurants.  Rising quickly in the ranks while falling in deep for her employer, Tora decides to take measures into her own hands, possibly sacrificing her career and her chance at love.

Elsa Ramstad has everything she has ever wanted - a loving husband, a beautiful family and a fulfilling life at sea.  Then tragedy strikes and she wonders if she will have the strength to go on.

Abandoned by her husband, Kaatje struggles to keep her farm afloat while trying to raise her two young daughters.  Kaatje must choose whether to accept the help of those around her or to try to do it all on her own.

The Norwegian immigrants journey farther west, to the rugged lands of the Montana and Washington Territories.  New heartaches and new help arrive as they each struggle to make their way.

Midnight Sun - Soren has been gone for 7 years and Kaatje is desperate to know if he is still alive.  Following his trail and led by guide, James Walker, Kaatje makes her way into the Interior of the wild lands of Alaska.  But will what she finds there ease her mind or leave her more confused?

Elsa has learned to live and to laugh again, but when on old friendship sparks into something more, will she have the strength to embrace it?

Tora has turned her heart over to God and has found the love of her life.  But before they can start their new life, she must finally find relief from the demons that have chased her.

In the conclusion of the Northern Light Trilogy, can Kaatje, Elsa and Tora finally find the peace and happiness that they have been searching for?

My Thoughts:

Whew!  I'm tired after writing about the plots above.  I know you must be worn out reading them.  Let me start off by saying that I really enjoyed these books.  Overall they were wonderful stories.  The settings were creative and unique and the reader gets to follow the characters all over the globe.  The books flowed well together.  In fact, I had to go back and review where one book left off and another started because the three books read more like one big story.

The characters are multi-faceted.  They face real-life situations, like adultery, rape and babies born out of wedlock.  They deal with grief and homelessness.  They must make real-life choices on ethics in the workplace and whether or not to be a working parent.  I thought the author did a great job of not placating the reader and not coming up with a pat story that we had all read before.

(I feel that it's my job as a book reviewer to give you both the good and the bad in a story.  Just because I critique the book, doesn't mean that's it's not worth reading.  I am more interested in you, my reader, knowing everything there is to know about a book so you can make an informed decision on whether to read it or not.)

So, the downside to this book...it's a total soap opera.  Honestly, as I was reading it, I could see this as a show with episodes.  I could see where one episode would end with a cliffhanger and the viewer would think they knew what was going to happen.  But as soon as the show came back again, you find that the writers have taken it a different way.  It's frustrating at times to read because characters that you think will stay and become an important part of the story seem to just disappear (i.e. get written off the show).  And new characters are introduced all the time, some that play an important role and some that don't.

Probably because of that, I felt like these were very long books.  I read the Kindle version, so I didn't have page numbers, but it took me all month to read this trilogy.  I am a pretty fast reader and I felt like these were never-ending books.  (I looked it up on Amazon and the trilogy is 991 pages.)  You get to a point where you pretty much know how it's going to end.  It just takes a long while to get there.

Overall, I really liked these books.  They were entertaining and never dull.  The characters were well-rounded and develop as the story goes on, both in their personal lives and in their spiritual lives.  The story ends well, even if I was somewhat frustrated at times in getting to the ending.  If you enjoy historical fiction with a lot of romance, then these will be great reads for you.

I give these books 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Echoes

Echoes by Robin Jones Gunn

Lauren Phillips seems to attract disaster - falling into tables full of food, getting a bad perm - but she wasn't expecting her fiancee, Jeff, to leave her.  She wasn't expecting her "happily ever after" to not even start.  Depressed and lonely, Lauren turns to her new computer and starts up an email pen-pal relationship with a man she only knows as KC.

Using the online name of "Wren," Lauren and KC quickly find many things in common and almost as quickly fall in love.  When the chance to meet "ILR" (in real life) comes up, can Lauren overcome her fear of abandonment and take the leap?  Or will her trepidation take over and force her to lose the love of her life?

My Thoughts:

I'll start out by saying that once I got half-way through this book, I couldn't put it down.  I had to find out if they got together in the end.  Echoes reminded me of a Karen Kingsbury kind of book where you can predict what's going to happen but you want to keep reading just to make sure it does happen.

That being said, I had a few annoyances with Echoes.  The book is centered on Lauren's e-mail relationship with KC, but the computer terminology used is ancient.  Instead of saying "email address", Lauren talks about finding KC's "number" to send him messages.  That confused me.  I don't even remember using that term when I first heard about email.  After reading conversations in the book about how new email and the Internet were, I went to the front and checked the copyright date -1996.  Yup, the Internet and email were new then.  Knowing that put things in a little better context.

Also there were characters introduced in the book that just kind of disappeared part way through the story and I really didn't know why they were brought in there.  I'm sure the author had a reason; I just couldn't figure it out.

I'd also like to point out that this is the 3rd book in an eight book series called The Glenbrooke Series.  I have not read any of the other books in the series.  Because of that I didn't know the back story of some of the characters but it didn't detract from this story in any way.  This book could definitely be read on its own without reading other books in the series.

I would categorize this as is a cute, romantic book, something that doesn't make you think too hard to read it.  These kinds of books are great to read when you just want to escape.  If you are looking for something current or deep, I would look elsewhere.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

I received a complementary copy of this book for review while participating in the Blogging for Books program.  All opinions are my own.

Blogging for Books: The Girl in the Glass

The Girl in the Glass by Susan Meissner

(from Amazon)
Renaissance is a word with hope infused in every letter.

Since she was a child, Meg has dreamed of taking a promised trip to Florence, Italy, and being able to finally step into the place captured in a picture at her grandmother’s house. But after her grandmother passes away and it falls to her less-than-reliable father to take her instead, Meg’s long-anticipated travel plans seem permanently on hold.

When her dad finally tells Meg to book the trip, she prays that the experience will heal the fissures left on her life by her parents’ divorce. But when Meg arrives in Florence, her father is nowhere to be found, leaving aspiring memoir-writer Sophia Borelli to introduce Meg to the rich beauty of the ancient city. Sofia claims to be one of the last surviving members of the Medici family and that a long-ago Medici princess, Nora Orsini, communicates with her from within the great masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance.

When Sophia, Meg, and Nora’s stories intersect, their lives will be indelibly changed as they each answer the question: What if renaissance isn't just a word? What if that’s what happens when you dare to believe that what is is not what has to be.

My Thoughts

The Girl in the Glass is a beautiful, poetic piece of prose.  The city of Florence comes alive in the pages and even a non-art-minded person like me is caught up in the beauty of the Renaissance masterpieces.  It was a fun book to read, as the setting played such a strong part, it was almost another character.

The story is told from Meg's point of view.  Because of that you get a first-person view of her heartaches and her loves. That really made the book come alive for me.

I enjoyed Meissner's prose; however, at times, it was almost too philosophical.  I just didn't understand some of it (of course, I don't understand a lot of poetry either, so maybe it's just me).  And I felt like Meg really waffled back forth over men in the story.  We find out in the epilogue who she ended up with.  I would have loved more story on that.  Her choice of love seemed almost more of an afterthought.

The Girl in the Glass was a good read and is a great choice for the more artistic person out there.  I enjoyed it, but I think someone who knows more about the art mentioned in the story would enjoy it more.  As a side note, I did look up some of the art on the internet to see what it looked like and I think the author has pictures of things in Florence on her website as well.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

I received a complementary Kindle version of this book while participating in the Blogging for Books program.