Summerside Press
ISBN: 978-0824934279
Published Sept 1, 2013
Trade paperback, 336 pages
Because I loved Masquerade by
this author, I had high expectations for this one. Maybe too high
because I was disappointed by The Journey of Josephine Cain.
Josephine has lost her brother and
cousin to the Civil War and feels stifled in a house with a mourning
mother and aunt. She is a wealthy general's daughter brought up in an
elite society and wants to get married. When her father returns from
the war and announces that he is going out West to supervise the
building of the Transcontinental Railroad, she wants to go too, but
is not permitted. Lewis Simmons enters the picture and they become
engaged. When they go out West for the Meridian celebration, she
meets Hudson Maguire, an Irish railroad worker. She also gets to see
how wild the West really is, but wants a new life. She gets her new
life, but for me it came too easy and conveniently for her.
The premise of the story was what
caught my attention, but most of Josephine's story does not take
place in the Wild West, which is what I was expecting. Overall, I
found the story to be a little unrealistic, the characters
superficial and the plot predictable and unexciting. I found Lewis to
be an encumbrance in the story and could not see what Josephine liked
about him. Having been born and bred in society, couldn't she and her
parents see that he was a fraud? I wish the author hadn't spelled out
what his intentions were from the very beginning as it killed all
suspension for me. Hudson came across as an American and not Irish at
all. The romance was...let's see, there wasn't much of it. The story
did get a little more interesting three-quarters in the book because
it took place in the West and there was a little more action.
There is something else that bothered
me too. Josephine's mother was portrayed as stiff-lipped and uncaring
while her general father came across as benevolent and pious. Yet,
the father spent 4 years at war and then on his return promptly took
off to the West, abandoning his mourning wife with an unsympathetic
daughter. He never sent home letters. His wife knew of his exploits
in the West because she read about them in the newspaper. And this is
supposed to be a Christian husband? Josephine was young so her
parents would have been a couple in their mid to late forties. Not old by any standards. Yet
the father showed no affection toward his wife nor any need for one.
When the railroad men took to going to the local brothel, he was not one of them. Married but without a woman for over five
years, and he never strayed? He was a man driven by ambition and little else.
But I seem to be the minority in not having enjoyed this book. I suggest you read other reviews of bloggers who really liked it. Visit the Litfuse blog tour page.
To participate in the giveaway of one of five copies, please visit this page.
Purchase a copy: http://ow.ly/pq47s
Note: This book is rated C = clean read.
Nancy Moser is the best-selling author of more than twenty novels. She is a winner and two-time nominee of the Christy Award, and her latest novel was named to Booklist's "Top 10 Romance Novels of 2011." Nancy and her husband have three grown children and three grandchildren, and they live in the Midwest.
Learn more at Nancy at: http://nancymoser.com/.
Reviewed by Laura
Disclosure: Thanks to Litfuse for sending me this book for review. I was not compensated in any other way, nor told how to rate or review this product.
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