I just read a book Her Mother’s Hope by Francine Rivers.  I found compelled to write a book review about it because it ties in to Family History, and I rarely find a book that is Fiction and a story about a family through generations.  The story was inspired by the author’s family history that she researched and events from her mother’s journal.

The story starts out in Steffisburg, Switzerland in 1901.  It is the story of a girl named Marta.  When Marta was twelve years old her father makes her leave school to go to work, and he takes her wages.  At fourteen her father sends her to a housekeeping school for six months to learn to be a servant.   Afterwards, Marta works several jobs and leaves home for Paris and then London working as servant.  Eventually, she travels to Canada, where she realizes her dream of owning a boarding house.  It is in the boarding house, that Marta meets her future husband, Niclas.  Marta and Niclas get married and she becomes pregnant.  Niclas loses his job and goes to Manitoba, Canada to follow his dream of farming,  Marta must decide whether to follow him to Manitoba or stay and run her boarding house.  She finally decides to follows Niclas to the wilderness of Manitoba.  They eventually end up owning a farm in Northern California and raise four children.  The oldest daughter, Hildemara, is quiet, doesn’t speak up, or argue, unlike her older brother and two younger sisters.  Her mother sees this as a weakness, and want Hildemara to stand up for herself.  She did not want her to grow up and be dependent on her.  She is harder on Hildemsara than the others, but Hildamara does not understand why and thinks her mother does not love her, like she loves the others.  Hildemara finally does learn to stand up for herself and works during high school, saves her money, and puts herself through nursing school.  She eventually marries and has children.  The story has many ups and downs as it takes Marta and her family though WWI, the Depression, WWII, illnesses, ending in the 1950’s with a cliffhanger. To find out what happens, I guess I will have to read the next book Her Daughter Dream

Note:  I added the link below because in my Blogging 101 class we were suppose choose an event and  participate and link to the event.  I chose Book Review Day.  The problem is that the link does not work.  So I went back and tried to find another event that would include a book review.  I could not find one, and I don’t have time to change it.  So here is the link anyway.  I tried!  Book Review Day