Wagons on the Prairie

Mona Hodgson continues the story of Maren Brandenburg, her new husband and her step-daughter, Gabi from Dandelions on the Wind. As they join the other friends from the “Quilted Heart Series” in Prairie Song.  This novel depicts friends and strangers together battling the elements and human fragility as wagons heading westward to the Promised Land of California. 

Anna Goben is the main character throughout the novel, but Caroline Milburn, newly widowed, and nanny to the many Kamden children fills much of the story. I believe it is Caroline on the cover, but there is no mention of her character or her love interest on the back cover.

Anna Goben is eighteen years old and much too young to shoulder the burden of leading her aging German Grossvater and depressed mother to California. Hoping the new frontier will snap her Mutter out of her miserable condition and weakness for alcohol. A condition plaguing her Mutter since news that Anna’s beloved brother Derrick, her mother’s only son, died in the war.

Sometimes strong emotions such as anger, passion, fear, or grief, lends themselves to love. The Garrett Cowlishaw, the wagon master with the Boone’s Lick Wagon Train Company, and his group of trail hand offer many opportunities for romance.  God’s providence and grace is once again forefront in Hodgson’s novel. Caleb Reger learns from Isaac the depths of God’s love and forgiveness.

 The author seems to offer an unusual nickname in both novels that I have reviewed; Woolly, the curly headed character of Maren’s husband to be  from Dandelions on the Wind and Boney, close friend of the Goben family in this novel returning from the war with news of Derrick’s death.

The company of wagons includes a group of folks from many nationalities. The Frenchman Dr. Le Beau and his family, Isaac a freedman from Georgia, along with the Zanzucchi boys will give Hodgson much to expound on in the next books of the “Heart Seeking Home” series.

I received this paperback from Waterbrook Multnomah for review.