The 4th sequal in the Song of Acadia series, and perhaps my favorite by far! I was blessed enough to find a copy while on vacation, just in time to read the next book I was on in the series! :D Yippee!!Nicole is now a Vicountess traveling to a new home in the American colonies. But with England and the colonies on the brink of war with one another, all Nicole's hopes and dreams for a settled life and home are dashed to pieces in a moment. With the dashing Gordon Goodwind paying suit, both her heart and her faith will be tested past her own limits, forcing her to lean on Someone Greater. But does the dashing Captain Goodwind share her faith as well as her heart? And when someone who was once dear betrays Nicole, what will she do? “We mustn't let temporary setbacks in a temporary world cause us to retreat and fail to keep that hope alive.”“God is not blind. Nor powerless. He has other ways, other means. Though the devil often appears to be the victor, he is not. Only momentarily at seeming advantage. But the tide will turn. God has other ways to accomplish His purposes. He has not been blindsided, of that you can be certain.”“Take your dreams, your fears, your struggles, and use them for stepping stones to Him, my child. Let every issue of life be a means of bringing you closer to the Shepherd.”A beautiful tale of faith and courage. My own heart echoed Nicole's struggles, and the faith message is beyond encouraging. Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn have done it again and woven history, fiction and faith together into a magnificient story.
I'm glad I read this series. Overall, it was engaging with great characters and a moving plot. It was a good entertaining read. Now... it's far, far, far from perfect. Spoiling my complaint because I can't explain it without spoiling:[spoil]Just like book #3, this wraps up way too neatly for my tastes. It just wasn't necessary for Louise and Catherine to be blood-relatives. And the discussion they have about their blood connection, IMHO, cheapens the miracle of the rest of their relationship. It's enough that two women of different cultures stepped across the gap to love each other the way they did. It's enough that Anne and Nicole bonded as sisters due to their experiences and faith, without them turning up to be cousins. It just was a silly overstep and I was disappointed. [/spoil]Even with that complaint, I did really like this book series and do recommend it to anyone who wants a sweet novel that is Christian without being overbearing, has romance without smut, and focuses on real, honest, identifiable women.
What do You think about The Distant Beacon (2002)?
While Anne settles in England, Nicole sets off to oversee her Uncle Charles’s property in Massachusetts. Gordon Goodwin acts as her guide as she first visits her parents, then traverses towards Massachusetts. War and devastation lie in her way.As Nicole travels, she wonders if she will ever truly find a home, and if she will ever find the right man’s love.Messages of courageous faith, forgiveness, and love are woven into this book. I won’t give away the exciting twists and turns, but I will say that I loved this riveting and well-written book!
—Melissa
Thoughts on the entire series.With these novels, I joined the ranks of readers who know what it is to be in the midst of a series, waiting, even with bated breath, for the next book in the series to be published.I appreciate the style and language that Bunn clearly brought into this co-written historical fiction saga with Oke. I remember being totally engrossed and on edge during a certain crucial stretch in The Meeting Place and was floored by the unembellished end to that nerve-racking rush: “And then it began to rain.” I grew attached to the characters over the course of the series, though I’ll admit I got a bit weary during the fifth novel, as while some of the characters were yet making more grand departures from one another, I lost the sense of what they were actually getting done, apart from moving around the globe.I might’ve been missing and/or forgetting things, though, weary in general after doing so much waiting, and I don’t regret a minute I spent with this saga.
—Nadine Keels
I swept through this one, rather disappointed. First of all, it's actually a middle book in a series, so I didn't get the references to anything that came before this book. It doesn't lend itself well to being a stand alone book. It's also pretty predictable as a plotline, more like a Harlequin romance than a historical fiction, which is what it sounded like. It also NOWHERE classified itself as Christian fiction, which is exactly what it was. Now, if you are INTO that genre, you'll like the book, but go back & read the series from the beginning or you'll be disappointed. I'm not into that, & found the repeated references to religion tedious & a total turn off.Other than that, Nicole, the main female character, is a pretty nice lady, if too stupid to tell her man how she felt about him just because he wasn't a religious man at the beginning of the book.
—Lisa James
