I was a little surprised by this book, it wasn’t what I was expecting, which was an intense story. Unfortunately what I got was a book that I felt read more like a Nora Roberts novel, something that sounded profound but ended up being really fluffy.
There are a lot of characters in this book with no real depth. I wanted more detail about horse therapy and the main characters, but ended up reading a lot about cats. Hey if you like cats, read this book, I just couldn’t take it seriously. The writing also felt a bit choppy. Having said that if you like a light read and love animals you will enjoy this, each to his own! I have no regrets reading it as I liked the ideas, just not the execution. Thanks netgalley for allowing me to read this.

Kurt Schafer Has found he has one relative left he never met after most are gone either because of WW II or post war from the things that happened to them. Kurt is welcomed in with his Aunt Eva and her friends. He is a college professor in Wisconsin but close enough to visit often to Linden Grove. He learns about horses and the healing effect they can have. He learns about all that goes on at the local vet's to help the animals of the area and the people who love some of those animals. Life is interesting and so different in this town for Kurt but it seems to have a healing effect for humans of all stages of life as well as the animals.

The Wanderers is a story about coming home, finding home, and finding yourself. I picked this ARC up because I enjoy a good finding place story, but I didn't get exactly what I was looking for. The writing itself was lovely and the author clearly knows how to write beautiful description, but I couldn't connect with the characters. There was something that put me off of them.

For instance, the main character Sarah refers to her grandmother in her head by her first name. It is something that felt out of place to me and pulled me out of the story. The same is true with the comment that "... My freshman lit classes aren't quite ready for Bede." That smacked of elitism to me. Especially since I did as a freshman read Bede. I even wrote my senior thesis my first semester of my sophomore year on Bede. I also felt like there were too many storylines going on and too many POV characters. It was hard to keep track especially since the character voices weren't distinct enough.

The story wasn't bad, but ultimately I didn't connect with the characters and it took me a long time to get through this.

Three stars.