Dakota: Four Inspirational Love Stories on the Northern Plains

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Summary: One of continuing faith in God
Review: Four different journeys of leaning on God. From leaving a home you have know your whole life and a family that loves you to head across the ocean to fullfill your hopes and dreams of the new world. Having a strong will and faith when life's journey becomes difficult.

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Summary: Snelling needs writing lessons
Review: Lauraine Snelling does it again--fails to keep her characters straight! The first three of the four novels in this collection are decent books, not up to Snelling's usual quality, but quite readable. The first, especially, which introduces the Moen family--Ingeborge, her husband John, and their children, 7-year-old Mary, 5-year-old Knute, 3-year-old Grace, and 5-month-old James. The fourth novel describes the same family ten years later . . . only Snelling made some serious errors! We have 17-year-old Mary, Knute, Grace, but James has disappeared and in his place we have 10-year-old Daniel, the youngest Moen. Oh, but wait, Mary also has a sister named Clarissa who is younger than Grace but older than Daniel. Which is not possible. And then a few pages later Clarissa's name is Beth. Oh, good grief. Can we say "dashed off in a few hours"? What a dreadful ending to a mediocre book.

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Summary: great format
Review: The story of four Norweigan women, two that have just come over and two that were raised in Dakota territory. Each finds love in a surprising yet different way. I really enjoyed the format of 4 short stories as opposed to one long one. I've read some books recently that seemed to drag on. This did not. They tie in together nicely and the endings were sometimes very surprising. I really liked the book. All four stories were believable and the women in them, inspiring.

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Summary: Very good!
Review: While other reviewers mentioned the female main characters, I enjoyed other characters whose lives were changed by the influence of these women. In the first book, Carl was very bitter about his first wife's death when he married Nora just so she could take care of his children. It wasn't until the end of the book that he realized he had been wrong and asked for God's forgiveness. In the second book, Nora's sister Clara becomes a live-in companion to Mrs. Norgaard, who has lost interest in life since her husband died. Mrs. Norgaard is much happier with Clara in the house, and together they help the local blacksmith, Dag, who has been persecuted by his younger brother Jude since childhood and as a result feels he isn't a worthwhile person. The third book is about Jude; he accidently kills his wife and mother, then drifts to where a schoolhouse is being rebuilt, and he meets and falls in love with the schoolteacher, and is ready to ask forgiveness from the Lord, his brother, and others he has hurt along the way. The fourth book is about a young girl whose father is the local pastor, and her experiences while waiting for a young man called to fight in Germany. Sometimes the character's stubbornness makes you want to scream at them, but everything works out in the end.

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Summary: A great inspirational story
Review: While the Blessing series is the dearest to my heart, this is still a wonderful collection of stories. The characters are real and bring life to the stories of the settlers to this area of the country. A definite need to read!