Together Forever

In Together Forever, Sophie has been caring for two young orphans for so long, she thinks of them as family. She won’t abandon them, like she thinks she was abandoned by her older sisters. A witness to a crime, she runs away from New York City by boarding an orphan train with her charges. When the train stops in Illinois, she meets Reinhold Weiss, a friend from the past, she pleads for his help. He has finally purchases his own small farm, mounting debts, and a harvest to bring in. Can he say no to his long-lost friend when she pleads for help?

Hedlund excels at providing a clean historical romance suitable for teens and adults alike. While the books could be read as stand-alone novels, they build on one another, with characters from the first book appearing in subsequent books. Readers have come to expect descriptive narrative, light faith elements, and excellent characterization from Hedlund’s books, and this series is no exception.

The repartee I loved in For Love and Honor? It’s in Together Forever, too. Not as sharp, but just as witty. And frankly, that’s what made it so good. Sharp? In this book? It would have made the story dull. How’s that for irony?

No, Ms. Hedlund proved that she knows what she’s doing when it comes to how to place certain elements and where. A master storyteller, she also manages to bring you up to speed on the book you didn’t read—you know, that first one in the series… ahem—without you feeling like you got too much of an info dump.

Instead, what she weaves is an intriguing story with interesting characters and unexpectedly expected plot lines. Look, it’s a romance. We know what’s going to happen, right? But she made me doubt. Several times. She made it impossible to put the book down until I knew, without a doubt, that the right guy would get the girl. And that they’d all be happy for it.

Okay, critics could make a few valid points.
They could. For example, Marianne is just a tiny bit too perfect. With a checklist of the “Mary Sue” elements, she’d come out strongly in favor—especially with her faults being mostly in her head instead of in reality.

But here’s the thing. In my opinion, somehow it works. She’s just that nice person who has made mistakes in her past, and we’re seeing a slice of her life where she, by comparison, doesn’t make any. Knowing about the past humanizes her. So I disagree with that critique, but I can see why some might make it.

And, yes. There were a few times that modern phrasing slipped in.
I know one had to do with “boundaries” and how someone didn’t respect or set them… see? I don’t even recall. It isn’t even that they wouldn’t have said it that way back then. I don’t know. But it did jar me for a moment because of how prevalent the term is today. It’s kind of like the word “cool.” Even used properly, there are just certain instances where it sounds modern anyway.

But my only real critique is the…
Well, for lack of better word… sizzle. If you read this in summer, be sure to turn down your thermostats so that you stay comfortably cool, because um… yeah. Seriously, if it was fair and right to do it, I’d knock off a star just to satisfy my own personal prejudices.

It’s not fair, though. The affection and desire displayed and contemplated are not inappropriate in the way they are portrayed (although one could argue that for the TIME in which it took place, it was a bit much). Where the character crosses a line, we know it… we’re not dragged through it. Where not, we’re kept as close to the fire as we can without being burned, perhaps. But still. That’s my personal preference. And since I know a few of my readers share it, I’m just putting that out there.

The biggest miss for me is that because of the light in which Ms. Hedlund portrayed the romance, we know that the main male character is a godly man who has a rougish, playful personality. However, if you take elements of what he did and how he did it and picked them apart without the rest of his personality in play, you could read them through very different and unsavory lenses. I suspect that some readers will.

But with a story that great, I can skim a few kisses and swoons. I’m more than okay with that.

Because, you see, I just really loved it–and I can’t explain why except that I believed it was playing out on the page, I rooted for good guys, cheered when bad guys got their come uppance, and my heart broke for the people it should break for. That made it wonderful.

And when I gave Together Forever five stars…
I also recalled that I said I was tempted to bump the last one to five. So there! HA!

This is shaping up to be a lovely series. This is book two and I enjoyed it even more than the first. Jody Hedlund continues to entertain us with complex characters and intriguing story lines. Looking forward to the next book!