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I’m just really behind on my reading.

I thought I had a good schedule set up but it doesn’t seem to be working. I also think that the book I’m reading isn’t really holding my attention. And while I know I can always just stop, I really don’t want to do that just yet. So I’m going to try to power my way through this.

Wish me luck!

Anyway, I think I’m going to share some old reviews so they can get some more views. I hope you check them out!

We’re going to start with Sara Donati’s Wilderness series:

Into the Wilderness: In the early days of the United States, Elizabeth Middleton and her brother Julian travel from their aunt’s home in England to join their father in Paradise, NY. Elizabeth is considered a spinster and has embraced it. She plans on opening a school in Paradise, using land her father has promised her. But when she arrives in Paradise, she encounters complications. Her father owns land two men want: Dr. Richard Todd and Nathaniel Bonner. While her father wishes for Elizabeth to marry Richard, she is drawn to Nathaniel. Raised in the ways of the Mohawk people, Nathaniel is unlike any man Elizabeth has met. The two fall in love and elope, earning Richard’s rage. He pursues them into the New York wilderness where they have to rely on each other to survive.

Dawn on a Distant Shore: Settled in their home in Lake in the Clouds, Nathaniel and Elizabeth believe their adventures are behind them.They turn their focus on their family: Hannah, Nathaniel’s daughter from his first marriage, and their newborn twins Daniel and Lily. But when it is revealed Nathaniel is a distant relative to a Scottish lord, their lives are turned upside again. The children are kidnapped and the Bonners must trust some shady characters in order to pursue them across the ocean to Scotland. What awaits them on the distant shore?

Lake in the Clouds: Set a few years after the second book, the Bonners have weathered some losses. But the twins have grown into rambunctious children and Hannah is on the cusp of adulthood. She travels down to Manhattan to stay with Elizabeth’s relatives and train as a doctor at the Pine-Cox Institute. She not only experiences intolerance and bigotry for who she is, but she also sees how society treats the people who go to the clinics: immigrants, slaves, etc. When she returns to Paradise, she debates about where her place in the world is.

Paradise has seen problems as well. A runway slave needs help getting to freedom and her presence brings back Liam Kirby, who ran away at the end of the last book. He’s a bounty hunter now and still carrying a torch for Hannah. But she doesn’t return his feelings and Liam continues his search. Hannah is soon distracted by an epidemic settling over the town just as her uncle arrives with a friend from the West. Change is coming to Paradise and Lake in the Clouds. How will the family handle it?

Fire Along the Sky: The year is 1812 and war is looming. Hannah returns from the West—without her husband or the child she had born since she left Paradise. She doesn’t say much and her family doesn’t prod. They have other issues to deal with. Daniel is determined to go to war.Lily wants to study art. Gabriel is a handful. And their cousin Jennet, newly widowed, has arrived from Scotland and is determined to find Luke to marry him. At the same time, change comes to Paradise and not all of it good.

Queen of Swords: Continuing a year after “Fire Along the Sky,” Luke and Hannah are still searching for the kidnapped Jennet. They rescue her but she reveals she has a child which was taken away for safe keeping. So they set out to find the child and their search takes them to New Orleans as the War of 1812 nears its end at the city. The three are thrown into a world of precarious race relations and intrigue. Luke and Jennet fight to reunite their family while Hannah finds an old friend…and a possible new romance.

There’s at least one more book in this series I need to finally read and conclude it. Maybe next year.

I hope you check out those reviews and may check out the books as well!

And we’ll see what happens next time!