Journey of Honor

I recently participated in a blog tour for the novel JOURNEY OF HONOR by Jaclyn Hawkes. (Please note—there are some brief spoilers.)

The jacket copy reads, in part:

"Thoroughly disillusioned with the ugliness and cruelty of slavery in the South, Trace Grayson leaves his young medical career to go west, hoping to leave bigotry and hatred behind. He begins taking goods by teamster train to sell in the territories. However, this fourth time across, in July of 1848, he's stuck in St. Joseph, Missouri, waiting for enough wagons to join the train so that they can leave."

Giselle is a seventeen-year old young woman who joined the LDS church in Holland, was disowned by her family and came to America with her grandparents. She is attacked by a mob of Mormon haters and finds herself pregnant. Her abuser accuses her of stealing from him just as they are preparing to leave Missouri for the West.

Trace and Giselle are thrown together and must push westward before winter strands them in the Rocky Mountains. They experience several different challenges along the way to their destination, one of which takes her grandparents in death. They are both likeable characters. Trace is a caring, hard-working man and Giselle is a feisty, beautiful young woman. I enjoy historical fiction and the premise of this story interested me.

I was disappointed to find I didn't care enough about the characters to really feel for them. When her grandparents died, I should have been devastated by her loss, but I found myself not caring about them as much as I had hoped. I think part of the reason for this is that the characters didn't have any flaws and I didn't really have a chance to get to know the grandparents. Trace and Giselle were challenged by events surrounding them, but not by their imperfections.

Their journey and wondering how the author would handle their relationship kept me reading.

If you are interested in reading this book, you can find it here.