Aiming for Love

When I started reading Aiming for Love, it was perfect timing. In our national community, conversation was rapidly around vaccines and viruses, specifically measles and other formerly common childhood illnesses. I was tired of interacting with people. I was tired of trying to teach the propaganda machine fueled persons I interacted with from time to time. It was time to pull back, provide conversation if someone reached out, but recover myself mentally and emotionally. I was also very pregnant. My fifth child was born in November after the release of this book in October and I was just done mom-ing. The older children (all under the age of ten at the time) were exhausting me. We were joking about how nice a stay in the NICU would be considering their descriptions. Long story short, the NICU stay wasn't enjoyable, more of a nightmare, but this book was my escapism from it all.

This is a Colorado story, a Christian Historical Fiction, full of romance and wit. Jo (Josephine) was a fascinating character to escape with into her own troubles with misinformation of whether Aesop's Fables was a second Bible and the fear and danger of sick people, out there. Need I tell anyone that I read this book in the months of my fourth trimester (when a mother stays home-bound to gently introduce her newborn to her life and world) that was suppose to end April 2020. Yeah, that spring of 2020. This story was just the adventure that I needed.

It still had gun toting scalawags, money, fear, and adventure. There was horseback riding, mountain climbing, and train rides. But there was a hermitage base of thought that all would be safe if you just stayed home... Everything and everyone far away that you don't understand is a danger... The timing of this was unreal for me. It was everything that I needed and there is a reason why Mary Connealy's books are always ones I come back for.

Pandemic aside. Children aside. This is a great read and the rest of the trilogy is worth the time as a whole. Highly recommended as always. Thanks to Netgalley and Bethany House Publishers for the blessing of letting me read this story.

I was interested in the premise of this one but instead of being a fun-fluff read it was simply too much fluff, like finding dry ice when you think you see snow. So many inconsistencies in the story and a romance in which I simply couldn't see what they saw in each other unless it was an attractive exterior.

There were no hogs and boars to hunt in 1873 Colorado. Feral hogs have only recently begun invading the southwestern CO area.

I had a very hard time understanding what Connealy was trying to portray about the girls' past. On one hand they had the entire Bible memorized front to back; on the other hand they couldn't discern that the book of fables wasn't holy too.

I could see maybe one girl memorizing instead of reading, but all three at once? Why would their grandparents not teach them their alphabet?

They were very naive about some things but super savvy about others; fearless in the open but terrified of the unknown (which was the most understandable part of their saga).

Overall, a story that held a lot of promise but didn't ultimately follow through. I will be trying the second book, though, to see if it follows through on that country-girl-goes-to-town vibe that I'd love to see.

Thanks to the publisher for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required. This review is based on a final copy.