Her Daughter's Dream (Marta's Legacy)

I found myself liking Marta more and more in this powerful conclusion to Her Mother's Hope; what a began as a seemingly hopeless tangled mess of relationships was resolved in a story rich in forgiveness - it illustrated beautifully that God can use even the most challenging of situations for something great. I thought it was especially interesting that just as Carolyn was drawn to her Oma Marta, May Flower Dawn is with her grandmother Hildie....the difference being that Marta encouraged Carolyn to persist in her challenging relationship with her mother; Hildie seems determined to undermine Carolyn every chance she gets. She is a tough character to enjoy because she is so persistently selfish.

Her Daughter's Dream takes us from the 50's through to present day....again, a rich-in-history lesson illustrating how decisions we make today can have such long reaching effects....but that God's grace can shine through and bring healthy resolution to it all, if we will simply stop being so stubborn and listen more than we speak.

Hildie is now a grown woman with a daughter of her own. Due to her poor health and concerns for passing her illness on to Carolyn, she's forced to rely on Marta to help take care of her daughter and her son.

Carolyn soon forms a tight bond with her Oma Marta, and it pierces Hildie's heart to see her mother raising Carolyn, remembering the distance she'd felt in their relationship as she grew up.

Here we see what is commonly referred to as a 'generational curse' lived out in the story. Marta's mistakes are lived out in Hildie's relationship with her daughter Carolyn...who seems destined to do the same with her own daughter, May Flower Dawn.

As Dawn grows into womanhood, she sees the breakdown in the relationships of the women she's loved her entire life. Can she be the one to break the cycle? Can she find the strength and the faith to bring the women of her family together once again?

Just when I think I've read the best that Francine Rivers has to offer, she surprises me with yet another fantastic novel! I don't know how she does it, but her books always have a way of keeping me from doing anything else (eating, sleeping, working....you get the picture) until I've finished the story. Between this book and the one before it, I don't think I've read anything better in Christian fiction in all of 2010.

I was anxious to see the continuation of Hildie's story from the first book, Her Mother's Hope. After Her Mother's Hope left me hanging just a tiny bit regarding Hildie and her relationship with Marta, I absolutely did not expect Hildie to take on such a dramatic personality change, both with her relationship with her mother as well as her young daughter. Not 40 pages into the book, my heart was already broken. Carolyn, Hildie's daughter, visited a neighbor's house, and a parent's worst nightmare was the result. Carolyn never spoke of these events to either of her parents until much later in her life, and after this incident, she and Hildie began to drift away from one another. The only place Carolyn could find a confidante was with her grandmother, Marta. Hildie was not crazy about this arrangement at all, but she let it go, and Marta practically filled in as a mother for Carolyn during her early years.

As the story progressed, Carolyn left home to go off to college, and met a girl there who was the life of the party. This relationship also had a huge impact on Carolyn's life, and Carolyn ultimately felt responsible for her. Then, due to some bad decisions by Carolyn and this friend, Carolyn's life was forever changed with the birth of May Flower Dawn. What Carolyn didn't realize was that things were about to start looking a little bit familiar when it came to the women in her family tree.

I think the thing that blew me away more than anything in this novel were the secrets that everyone kept. No one wanted to share there feelings for fear of what someone would think of them. They didn't want to be honest with one another, and instead, chose to keep things bottled up inside. Oh, what turmoil this caused everyone in the overall picture of their lives. Their lives could have been so much different if they'd just sat down and talked things out. It was at this point that May Flower Dawn really emerged as the glue that held this family together. I don't want to get too ahead of things and spoil the story for anyone, but if Dawn had not been attentive to the voice of God, there would have been a never-ending generational problem that could've gone on for years and years. Her resolve to restore her family, although it was one of the hardest things she had to do, really blessed my heart.

Her Daughter's Dream gets another HUGE 5-star rating from me just like Her Mother's Hope did a few months ago. Both books challenged me to re-evaluate the relationships I have with both my mother and my grandmother. Even though they're both 500+ pages each, I never noticed it. In fact, I read each book in about a day. You'd think that 2 books that cover a period of 50 years each would be too rushed, and not having much detail, but neither is a problem because Francine Rivers is such a skilled author. As is the case with all of her other novels, both books in the Marta's Legacy series have earned a permanent place on my keeper shelf. I have no clue what she has in store for her next novel, but I have to wonder if it will even possibly be able to compete! So, run, drive, click, whatever, to your nearest bookstore, and bring these books home with you...you will not regret it for a second!