Together Forever...#BookReview

About the book:
Will the mistakes of their past cost them a chance at love?

Determined to find her lost younger sister, Marianne Neumann takes a job as a placing agent with the Children's Aid Society in 1858 New York. She not only hopes to offer children a better life, but prays she'll be able to discover whether Sophie ended up leaving the city on an orphan train so they can finally be reunited.

Andrew Brady, her fellow agent on her first placing-out trip, is a former schoolteacher who has an easy way with children, firm but tender and friendly. Underneath his charm and handsome looks, though, seems to linger a grief that won't go away--and a secret from his past that he keeps hidden.

As the two team up, placing orphans in the small railroad towns of Illinois, they find themselves growing ever closer...until a shocking tragedy threatens to upend all their work and change one of their lives forever.

Thank goodness for sequels. Together Forever picks up not long after With You Always. Marianne Neumann still searches for her younger sister Sophie, convinced that she has gone west. When given the chance to join the orphan train as a placing agent, Marianne takes it, hoping to find her sister in one of the cities along the journey.

Where the first story was focused on the plight of women and how they went west looking for work, this story focuses on the orphan train itself. We come to know these children and see how Marianne and Andrew become attached to them and then suffer the difficulties in letting them go.

There is romance and drama. There are darker sides to the orphan train and the situations in which children were placed and the author isn't afraid to address those. The burgeoning romance between Andrew and Marianne is at times humorous, but also emotional.

Characters from With You Always return, but the story stands alone well. I am looking forward to the next story in this series where we finally discover Sophie's story.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book. You can learn more about Jody Hedlund here.

Read 7/18

* * * *
4/5 Stars

Comments

  1. Lots of interesting features here in this book. Thanks for the review.

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