Beloved Author Lauraine Snelling Launches New Immigrant SeriesWhen Signe, her husband, Rune, and their three boys arrive in Minnesota from Norway to help a relative clear his land of lumber, they dream of owning their own farm and building a life in the New World. But Uncle Einar and Aunt Gird are hard, demanding people, and Signe and her family soon find themselves worked nearly to the bone in … nearly to the bone in order to repay the cost of their voyage. At this rate, they will never have land or a life of their own.
Signe tries to trust God but struggles with anger and bitterness. She has left behind the only life she knew, and while it wasn’t an easy life, it wasn’t as hard as what she now faces. When a new addition to the family arrives, Signe begins to see how God has been watching over them throughout their ordeal. But after all that has happened, can she still believe in the promise of a bright future?
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This book is a good start to what I’m sure will be like all other Lauraine Snelling series will be a great read that you done want to end. I have never read anything from Lauraine Snelling that was not a good clean enjoyable read.
I always liked this author. You feel like u r right there with the characters. Recommend it
Loved this book and the author!! She is such a great writer!!
For those who read and loved Snelling’s Red River series, you’ll love The Promise of Dawn, Book 1 in Northern Skies. These stories tell of the lives of immigrants to the USA from Norway. The characters are realistic–funny, sad, and always strong and true to themselves, their families, and there goals to become real Americans. Absolutely wonderful!
I love everything that Lauraine Snelling writes!!
This is one of Snelling’s great books. I love historical fiction, and hers are the best!
Great book,u need to read the entire series
I enjoyed the book tremendously in fact I had a hard time putting the book down.
Few books warrant my attention to the point that I can’t put them down, but The Promise of Dawn by Lauraine Snelling captured my interest from the first chapter. I found myself sneaking in a chapter whenever I had an extra moment. Signe Carlson’s struggles to adapt to a new world, a new environment , and the unceasing demands of Onkel Einar will make the reader laugh, cry and angry. Don’t miss this first novel in the series, Under Northern Skies.
I love all of this author’s books that I have read. Always a good story and hard to put down.
You feel you are right their with the people in the book. It is a book you don’t want to have it end
Enjoyable
A new series for Lauraine Snelling. Loved it. She never disappoints!
The Promise of Dawn by Lauraine Snelling is a Christian historical fiction following a family as they immigrate from Norway to a farm in Minnesota in the late 1800s.
Signe and Rune answer the request of their relatives to move to America with their three boys to help their relatives clear the lumber from their homestead. However, when they arrive, they find out that, in spite of inviting them, their uncle is hard and unwelcoming and their aunt is bitter and bedridden. Signe and her family do their best to help, make a new life there, and share God’s love to their relatives in spite of their difficult circumstances.
I really enjoyed this book. It isn’t a romance but the story of a family working hard to make a life for themselves in America. They encounter many difficulties, not the least of which is their aunt and uncle, but they keep going.
Signe is the main character, though the story is told from multiple points of view, and she has to endure the brunt of the changes. Her aunt screaming at her from the other room all the time with no gratitude for the help Signe gives and no assistance either. On top of that, Signe discovers she is pregnant. I admired her perseverance and dependence on God to keep being kind in the midst of the circumstances.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the historical detail. It seems as though the author did an excellent job at portraying what living in that time period and location as immigrants would be like.
I would very much recommend this clean, Christian, historical novel.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from ten publisher. I did not receive compensation, and all I wrote was the complete truth.
Loved it. Kept me interested and kept me reading!!
This is a story of a family’s journey in 1909 from Norway to America.
This is a dream come true for Rune Carlson and his three sons, but not so much for his wife, Signe who is pregnant.
After many months of difficult traveling the family finally comes to settle in a small town in
Minnesota where Rune’s uncle and wife live. Their excitement of arriving in “Amerika” as they call it is quickly diminished when they meet their trip benefactor, Einar Strand and his wife, Gerd.
Will they be able to fulfill the agreement made with hard, demanding Einar or will they have to return to Norway? This is a question both Rune and Signe have in their minds daily as they struggle to live out this new life in America, the land of opportunity and abundance, or so they thought when they left Norway.
You will experience their pain, anguish, anger, and fear as you read page after page of this family’s daily life and you will come to know them as friends. You will cry with them and laugh with them and you will pray with them too, as they trust in God for help and guidance against all the human odds they face.
This is a compelling story. One you will not want to stop reading, yet one that pulls you forward to the finish, and it will keep you waiting on pins and needles to see what happens in Book 2 of this series.
(For those of you who are familiar with Lauraine Snelling’s books , Rune Carlson in this series is the son of Gunlaug, cousin to Ingeborg Bjorklund, of “The Red River of the North” series that was set in North Dakota. )
–Leona J. Atkinson
I love her books, and when you put the series together it makes it really historical.
Couldn’t put it down. Wanted more.
I absolutely love this stunning new novel! It reminds me of Ecclesiastes 4, how if one falls, the other will lift him up, and the threefold cord is hard to break. That is what I saw in action with Rune and his wife Signe. Even if one loses faith for a time, another is faithful to help that one back to the cord that is secure. I was drawn in from the first page and my only letdown was turning the final page. Each well-rounded character is drawn with care, and descriptions of both Norway and America sing with beauty.
It was a delight to read about more of the Carlson and Strand family members who leave Norway for the North Central United States. In early 1909, Gunlaug is looking forward to her son Johann’s imminent wedding when she receives a letter from their cousin Einar in Minnesota. He asks the impossible. Due to his wife’s illness, he needs help felling trees and growing his farm. He would pay the passage for one of her sons and his family to would move across the ocean, help him with the logging and farming to pay for their passage, perhaps giving them a portion of his land to live on and farm.
Rune, the least strong son, wants to go to work. His wife, Signe, has had much heartache and loss, so separating her from her family is heartbreaking. He still chooses to take Signe and their three sons, knowing they will probably never see their Norwegian family again in this life.
In Minnesota, they are met with a grumpy man, sleeping on the floor in the parlor as the ladder to the attic room is too precarious, and a bedbound woman who screeches for her needs. The house is laden with dust, filthy laundry, and mice. Each takes on their assigned tasks to give them their all, receiving no thanks or encouragement.
Signe, becoming pregnant just before they left Norway, must take care of the house and Gerd, Einar’s wife. Their sons take care of the livestock, their oldest son working long days felling trees with his father. Rune feels his faulty vision slowly worsening, yet he works as hard, as the rest. Signe scrubs the house from walls to floors to cabinets. They endure Einar’s barely controlled fits of anger regularly.
I have new respect for those who came here in search of a better life! I knew they worked impossibly long, hard hours to survive, but what the Strands endure as they work for Einar and Gerd is unimaginable. They work seven days a week, no time off for church or a Sabbath rest. When one family member is badly injured when working, Einar’s anger turns to rage. Letters from home help, but nothing staves off the isolation that Signe suffers with. Each family member draws deep within, drawing strength from God. I like Signe, and might not have been as kind as her! I grew to like Gerd, but couldn’t begin to like Einar.
Plot twists continually change the novel. Some bring peace, some bring further pain. One thing is clear from the prayers of Rune and Signe; they grow in the secure knowledge that the Lord will take care of them, even when threatened with losing lives. The author elicits gentle humor, feeling Einar’s rage even as a reader, and awe at the splendor of God’s creation. I heartily recommend this fabulous first in the new Under the Northern Skies series, to adults of any age and older teens who enjoy Christian women’s historical fiction. This is a not-to-be-missed novel!
From a grateful heart: I was given this eBook by the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway and here is my honest review.
Lauraine Smelling is one of my favorite authors. I read everything of hers I can.