Suzanne G

I really enjoyed this book. With three main characters but each so different, the meshing of these three people during WWII is very satisfactory. Humor, particularly with Iris and her doctor, is subtle, and that special scene actually made me laugh aloud. Sarah Blake will be read by me as long as she keeps writing.

I didn't like this book--only because I think this type of romance is fluffy and too graphic to put any substance to a story. I felt the plot and the many characters were so labored and so outlandish and so unrealistic, I wondered if I could even finish! But yet, because I had free time I figured I would like to know what else the author could come up with before it finally ended! She didn't fail me.

I do realize there are many, many books written in this fashion and just as many readers who enjoy. I just don't happen to be one. This book was a poor choice on my part.

To start with, I had no idea that Canada invited Ukrainian immigrants. This book kept my interest to the end. In the beginning, I was apprehensive at each page turn: What possibly could go wrong with the characters next? I felt I was reading the unfolding of a scary movie. The author's descriptions and details were vivid and believable. I could not wait for the end, yet having been warned the the ending was tragic, I knew I was asking for some disappointment with the story.

Not so--as it was as it had to be and the family moved on. My mother was born into a family of farmers who'd traveled by train from the Midwest to homestead in Washington state. Her stories of the near poverty (although c. 1910) reminded me that farming was not easy at all--even in later years.