Media Guests Blog Tour for Journey of Honor by Jaclyn M Hawkes

Journey of Honor

By Jaclyn M Hawkes

Book Summary:

Disowned, she came to America anyway. Attacked and left pregnant by a vicious mob, she still pressed on. Finally, in spite of being accused of theft by the vilest of her attackers, Giselle tries to remain as upbeat and uncomplaining as a prairie wildflower as she travels on to Zion.

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. 

Knowing that if they don’t start west soon, they’ll be caught by snow in the mountains, Trace is thrilled when the final wagon signs on. Then, when the beautiful, young Dutch girl traveling with the last wagon is falsely accused of stealing and is detained, the whole trip is jeopardized. Thrown together by circumstance, Trace and Giselle team up to begin to figure out just how to make this epic journey across a continent a success. 

With a deep sense of honor and an equally strong sense of humor, together they learn to deal with everything except the one trial that neither of them can overcome.

My thoughts:

Well let’s just say that I always love a good love story. Not that I like sappy love stories, but in a world of so much pain, I love to run away to a book that reminds us that if we can just love each other we can always make it through the hard stuff. Even though this is a story about pioneers crossing the plains to Zion it is not a typical pioneer story. It still covers all of the trials and struggles of heading West on a wagon trail but doesn’t focus solely on that aspect. It centers more around the characters that are portrayed instead. Ms. Hawkes builds the characters and their histories for you completely. Especially the main couple of Trace and Elle. You feel like you know them and that you also want to know more about them. The author really let’s you see inside of their heads and let’s you feel what they feel.

However, I felt several times that the author was telling me the story rather than showing me the story. I love to picture a story in my mind just like it were a movie unfolding to me. I struggled in some scenes to see it clearly that way. I think improved dialogue would have been better than just telling me what happened between the characters.

The romance though that developed in this story was well -  romantic. What a guy Trace is! Who wouldn’t want that kind of respect and pure love from another human being? Don’t worry though he isn’t the too good to be true kind of guy though. He has flaws and they are shown in the story. If he didn’t I would have had a hard time believing him. Elle needed some more flaws. (Maybe I am just jealous she is so perfect?) She was a little unbelievable in some scenes to me for all that she had gone through. However, I do think that depending on culture, experiences and the era depicted it could have happened. I think we are so jaded in this 21^st century that we forget that some of these hardships were just everyday life for people. They didn’t and couldn’t dwell on what had happened to them and had no choice but to move forward. Our generation would sit down and cry, get therapy, and expect others to take care of us in our self-pity. Once I thought about that as a true reality then she was a believable character.

Very easy, fun read. I thought it was very clean and tastefully done. I would recommend this to anyone that loves the romance that can develop despite hardships. Very well crafted story. I give it 4 stars!

Thank you for Media Guests for including me on the Blog Tour for this book.  Visit their website on the link provided.