A Life Once Dreamed

RACHEL FORDHAM

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, Revell, 2020.

How acquired: Recieved from the publisher for review via the Revell Reads Blogger Program. 

(For the Goodreads synopsis, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

My thoughts: Six years ago Aggie's childhood sweetheart, James, proposed to her, and when she rushed home to tell her parents, they revealed a secret they had been keeping from her. Distraught, she broke the engagement and fled the big city for the small town of Penance, where she now teaches school. We, the reader, aren't told that secret until well into the book, though it wasn't too hard to eventually guess. And then James shows up in town, having been hired to be the new town doctor.

After a fire leaves a little boy orphaned, Aggie takes him in and falls in love with him, and is determined to keep him. But you know what high standards schoolteachers were kept to back in the day – if she has a child, she loses her teaching contract and her home.

I loved this book. The characters are all so well written, even the supporting characters. Aggie's love for her students and the town shines through, and the arrival of James leaves her a bit unsettled. And poor James, his frustration is almost palpable as he tries to find out why Aggie broke their engagement before it had hardly started. And then there's Sam, one of the miners who comes into town fairly frequently and is smitten with Aggie. I was rooting for him almost as much as for James. True to small town dynamics, everybody is all up in everybody else's business, and Aggie's friends and the mayor pushing her to pick a husband and settle down was amusing.

Ms. Fordham writes beautifully, with the narrative seamlessly switching between the points of view of Aggie and James, letting us get know each of them. James, especially, grows as a character, from feeling that he may be in over his head as a town doctor when he's fresh out of medical school, to learning to love the small town that he had expected to be a temporary part of his life. I loved watching his views and ideas change as he began to love the town and its inhabitants as much as he still loved Aggie.

If you're a fan of When Calls the Heart, I believe you'll enjoy this story. I know I did, very much.

Goodreads synopsis: Six years ago, a shocking secret sent Agnes Pratt running in search of a new start. She found it in Penance, a rugged town of miners and lumberjacks in the Dakota Territory, where she became Miss Aggie, respected schoolteacher and confirmed old maid. But the past has a way of catching up with people.

When childhood friend and former sweetheart James Harris accepts a position as the town doctor, Aggie's pleasantly predictable days suddenly become anything but. James wants to know why Agnes left behind the life they had dreamed of creating for themselves--but he is the one person who can never know.

In the shadows of the Black Hills, can a healing light be shed on the past? Or will the secret Agnes can't seem to outrun destroy her chance at happiness?

Fan-favorite Rachel Fordham brings to life the dusty streets of an 1880s frontier town in this story that affirms where you come from matters far less than where you're going.

The Hope of Azure Springs

RACHEL FORDHAM

Goodreads synopsis: Seven years ago, orphaned and alone, Em finally arrived at a new home in Iowa after riding the orphan train. But secrets from her past haunt her, and her new life in the Western wilderness is a rough one. When her guardian is shot and killed, Em, now nineteen, finally has the chance to search for her long-lost sister, but she won't be able to do it alone.

For Azure Springs Sheriff Caleb Reynolds, securing justice for the waifish and injured Em is just part of his job. He's determined to solve every case put before him in order to impress his parents and make a name for himself. Caleb expects to succeed. What he doesn't expect is the hold this strange young woman will have on his heart.

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, Revell, 2018.

How acquired: Revell Reads Blog Tour Program.

First line: “She dead?”

My thoughts: The only downside to loving a book by a new to you author is realizing that it's a debut novel, and there is no back list to run out and hunt down!

Orphaned at age twelve, Em and her younger sister, Lucy, are put on an orphan train, where they end up being separated. The book opens seven years later, and Em has been found shot and unconscious and taken into Azure Springs. A local couple, Abraham and Abigail Howell, take her into their home to care for her while she recuperates.

Em is such a richly drawn character. We actually start getting to know Caleb, the sheriff, a little sooner than we do Em, since she is bedridden and sleeping a lot in the beginning. Caleb is determined to find the men who shot Em and killed her guardian, and thus he spends some time with Em, questioning her and slowly learning about her life before Azure Springs. He, too, is richly drawn. In fact, while the point of view changes back and forth between Em to Caleb, the supporting characters are still all well fleshed out.

It's not love at first sight, certainly not instalove, which I was very happy about. In fact, Caleb is quite smitten with Eliza, the Howells' oldest daughter, and she definitely has her sights set on him. He looks at Em and sees a waif, a thin, plain looking girl, who he initially mistakes for a child.

And that's a theme of the book. I don't ever get the impression that Em is ugly. But she's not a classic beauty or glamorous looking. Her own view of herself is skewed. Town after town with the orphan train, being overlooked by all the prospective families until most of the other children have been claimed, left her feeling unwanted and self-conscious about herself. As she and Caleb develop a strong friendship, she's grateful for that, but she assumes he won't ever want more than friendship with her. Especially compared to girls like Eliza.

While his pa talked, Caleb envisioned Em's freckled face. “Beauty is something we get to define. We may not see it right away, but when we do, we have trouble even remembering the other definition. We wonder how we were ever so misled. All we can see is the one person who defines it for us.”

That's just a tiny example of the beautiful writing. 

I loved watching Em grow and become more self-confident, falteringly but with self-determination. I loved Em's interactions with the Howells' younger daughters, seven-year old twins. I even enjoyed her interactions with Eliza, the only Howell not to welcome her with open arms, but who instead was snobbish and at times downright rude to Em. In fact, in the middle of one of those passages I wondered if there would be more Azure Springs books, as Eliza seemed like the perfect person to get her own story and have her character redeemed by love. Or even Margaret, a widow who owns a boarding house in town and gives Em her first paid job, and becomes a dear friend while imparting words of wisdom. And then I set the book down to see if the author was active on Goodreads, so I could ask her if there were going to be more Azure Springs books. She responded: “My second book is stand alone but the characters do pass through Azure Springs and we get to see lots of characters from The Hope of Azure Springs in it.” I'm already excited for that next book to come out!

When Em finally has the chance to travel to the town where she and her sister had been separated, I cried for several pages. A beautiful story, beautifully written, and emotionally satisfying.