Spectres of the Civil war and dangers haunt Boyd and his brother as they move to find a new life . 3rd book is a good addition to this series .

Ebook from netgalley and publishers with thanks .Opinions are entirely my own.

The story continues from where the last book ended, with Boyd Carter and his 13-year old brother Malcolm leaving Iowa City and their friends to continue on to their family homestead in Minnesota. Boyd has made the difficult decision to not pursue his relationship with Rebecca Krage, the widow who opened her homestead to the him, Sawyer and Lorie Davis. Overshadowing his journey is the disappearance of former U. S. Marshall Thomas Yancy and his son, Fallon, who tried to kill Sawyer and Lorie but was thwarted and shot by Malcolm. They still remain a threat even though Boyd isn’t even certain if Yancy is still alive.

To say Boyd and Malcolm’s journey to Minnesota was harrowing was a serious understatement. I’ve come to expect the author to be authentic in her storytelling so I was prepared for it to not be warm and fuzzy. Pioneer travel in this era was fraught with danger and Boyd and Malcolm were not immune. Some of the situations were just heartbreaking and I seriously wondered at times if one of these characters was going to be sacrificed. It was often gut wrenching and always emotional. A new character was introduced, Cora Lawson, and if you’re reading the connected series, Shore Leave Cafe, you’ll have better insight into her importance.

I’ve loved this amazing series, which impresses me for its unique insight into an historical era that was difficult and inspiring. These are characters who became embedded into my soul and the author does an outstanding job of creating vivid images of time and place. The western frontier was primitive at that time and I got to experience the realities of what that meant. It’s been a tough but wonderful journey in following these characters that I’ll continue with in the connected series. I highly recommend this one as it’s extraordinary.

This book is about a soldier back from the Civil War trying to find his place in a battle weary country. I enjoyed the historical nature of the book, the setting, the struggles, the hardships. This is a long book. The first half of the book was a real struggle for me because there was no action just a ton of information about the main character, his family, his friends, his love interest and the territory. It took me about 3 weeks to get through the first half of the book, it was just so confusing, repetitive and frankly boring. The second half of the book began to see a lot of action and was quite good. I'm afraid many readers will give up and move on to another book before they get to the good parts. All in all, I enjoyed the book once the action began. It was well written just very long and contained way too much unnecessary background to hold this readers interest.

It's hard for me to describe Grace of a Hawk because for much of the book I was confused. Confused as to who the POV character was. Confused as to what happened. Confused about who was the protagonist. Just overall confused.

This book was very hard to read. It changed locations, POV's, and times without preparing the reader. The POV was first person so the first few switches were jarring. This could be solved by having headers with locations, dates, and which POV we're in.. I also got lost since there was either an overabundance of infodump or not enough. The story dragged while the characters did an "as you know" to catch the reader up. I didn't know this was part of a series until much later.

This book took me over 3 months to read. And despite some fun characters and good dialogue when we got it. I couldn't enjoy this book.

Two Stars

I enjoyed this book. I have not read the other two and think I should have before I read this one. Seems to be a good series.

After requesting this book and starting it, I realised that to be able to get the full understanding of it I must read the previous two in the series. I purchased the other two and read them all in three days.

I must say this is one of the best historical series I have read in a good long while. The main character Lori is one of the strongest and resilient female characters I think I have ever read about. She doesn't seem to be able to catch a break and is wanted wherever they travel.

The three books contain so much of her and her troubles, her association with the men in these books and their love for her.

In this third book, even though much is about Lori, this one centres more around Boyd and Rebecca, Lori's husband's best friend and the widowed woman he has met and fallen instantly in love with.

Boyd must make a very hard decision and along with his brother Malcolm, they leave behind the women and make their way to Boyd's Uncle Jacob in Missouri.

They are fraught with so many setbacks and danger along the way you are left with the feeling that just maybe fate will not be kind and they may never meet their final destination.

Once you start this series, you feel compelled to read, as I did, all three books back to back. The writing is excellent and the characters are vividly portrayed. I loved every word and will surely be reading more books by Abbie Williams.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this wonderful book.