A Breath of Hope by Lauraine Snelling

A Breath of Hope is Lauraine Snelling's newest book in her Under Northern Skies saga. It is the story of the Strand and Carlson families who traveled from Norway to settle in Blackduck Mn. In this story, Signe and Rune are getting along better with Gerd, but Einar is still causing trouble. Now Rune's younger siblings are joining the family.
I love this story. The setting is Blackduck Mn. I travel through Blackduck when I go to Walmart. It is a cute town. Ms. Snelling accurately described the winter weather and how endless it seems. I loved her tying in her Red River Valley books by having the Bjorklands be cousins of the Carlson family. I look forward to the next book to see how the story progresses. Since this is a Norwegian story, I will forgo my usual cup of tea and brew a strong pot of Coffee!

I was given this book by NetGalley.com for review purposes. All thoughts are my own.

From Amazon:

Nilda Carlson has been trying to save enough money to go to America for months, so when a letter from Einar and Gerd Strand arrives, offering to pay her ticket, she jumps at the chance. Her younger brother Ivar accompanies her, and they can't wait to join their brother Rune and his family in the northern forests of Minnesota. 

Signe and Rune Carlson are thrilled to welcome Nilda and Ivar to America, but life on the farm remains a struggle. Though Gerd has softened and grown to love the Carlson family, Einar is still harsh and unforgiving, obsessed solely with felling as many trees as possible. Rune is trying to build a new home for his wife and children, but Einar refuses to help and forbids anyone from the nearby community from stepping foot on his land. What dark secret must lie in his past to have caused him to isolate himself--and anyone living under his roof--in this way? When a tragedy lays the truth bare, the Carlsons and Strands will have to come together like never before and become a true family.

About the Author:

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Biography

Award-winning and best selling author Lauraine Snelling began living her dream to be a writer with her first published book for young adult readers, Tragedy on the Toutle, in 1982. She has since continued writing more horse books for young girls, adding historical and contemporary fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers to her repertoire. All told, she has over eighty books published with more than 4 million copies in print.


Shown in her contemporary romances and women’s fiction, a hallmark of Lauraine’s style is writing about real issues of forgiveness, loss, domestic violence, and cancer within a compelling story. Her work has been translated into Norwegian, Danish, and German, and she has won the Romantic Times Career Achievement award for Inspirational Fiction, the Silver Angel Award for An Untamed Land and a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart for Song of Laughter. 


As a sought after speaker, Lauraine encourages others to find their gifts and live their lives with humor and joy. Her readers clamor for more books more often, and Lauraine would like to comply ... if only her paintbrushes and easel didn’t call quite so loudly.

Lauraine and her husband, Wayne, have two grown sons, and live in the Tehachapi Mountains with a watchdog Basset named Winston. They love to travel, most especially in their forty-foot motor coach, which they affectionately deem “a work in progress”.