-Review by Tammy Millwood, a friend of AshertopiA

A young girl in turn of the century North Dakota has the opportunity to train to be a doctor. She will be faced with everything from everyday struggles and decisions to faith challenging crisis and disappointment. The author takes us from the idyllic country setting to the fast paced city life of downtown Chicago, where she will ultimately persevere and accomplish what she has set out to do.

When I first sat down to read this book, I was overwhelmed with the flood of names and relations that the author seemed in desperate need to rush into within the first few chapters. As one who has not read any prior books related to this family or any of the previous storylines I found myself completely confused several times, re-reading pages and flipping through looking for some sort of reference I may have missed. Not finding any I continued in hopes of eventually making sense of all of the people laid out before me. I had also hoped to find an index or list of pronunciations for all of those names, since I could not find one I kept stumbling over them continually and finally settling on what I am sure was not the right one.

A little slow at first and almost too sweet. Everyone blending in together as almost the same character one for the men and one for the women, most of the characters seemed interchangeable, not really set apart in any way. All with the same ideas and flow of writing that added to my consternation trying to get these people straight in my mind.

Right around Chapter 4 things begin to pick a bit. A few of the characters seem to begin to have life breathed into them as their personalities begin to show through and if you have the "perseverance" to get that far, you will be rewarded with a sweet and down to earth story that overall was enjoyable. There are several storylines emerging at once intertwining and leaving plenty of room for a continued story. I found myself looking forward to the next book, wondering what will become of the main characters I feel I did manage to get to know.

This book was provided by the publisher as a review copy.