Beside Still Waters

Loss might just be the hardest challenge in life we must overcome when we face it. It might be loss of life, a job, an unfulfilled expectation, an unanswered prayer or just a sense of lost direction of where we should head next. In Beside Still Waters by AnnaLee Conti, the third novel in the Alaskan Water Series, Violet Channing has had her fill of these losses. Giving up her dream to become a schoolteacher leaving her one year short of being a certified to care for her last remaining family member, she knows first hand how to handle the loss of both of her parents, her uncle and sadly within a couple of months her aunt. She is now left all alone. No family to speak of, and only a few pieces of her former life she can take with her, she knows she can't stomach going back to work in the garment factory. She responds to an ad in the paper for a teaching position of a young ailing child in the Alaskan wilderness.

She is more than thrilled and a bit apprehensive when she gets a letter notifying her to come to an interview with the grandmother who is attempting to fill the position. Jennie has lost her mother and now is faced with a heart condition that keeps her confined to bed and without the ability to attend school. It is the perfect job and a chance to leave all her losses behind her and instead head west from Boston to Alaska. She makes a wonderful impression on Mrs. Henderson who believes Violet is just what her granddaughter needs and offers to full fund her expenses to travel and also to prepare for the wildness life she is about to face. Brutally cold winters and a lot of uncertainty. Now it will take her a couple of weeks to travel first by train, then by steamship and then train again to get to Whitehorse Alaska. She meets an unlikely prospect in John Barston, a steamship captain bound for Whitehorse to prepare his own ship for travel after the winter storage and gives Violet an informative tour along the way.

They both learn a lot about not only the river they travel upon but also the railroad line which John is employed with as well. They seem to be well-suited for one another, but Violet soon realizes that she can't get involved with a man who will be working aboard a steamship while she remains employed as the Henderson teacher and caregiver. She has put her faith on the back burner due to the many losses she has had to face along the way, and wonders how God could be so cruel to leave her alone for so long and now with no family to speak of. It will be a true test of her faith if she can find it again and perhaps in the process will learn why she has had to face such adversities in someone so young. Then again perhaps God has never left and instead has been guiding her all the way.

I received Beside Still Waters by AnnaLee Conti compliments of Ambassador International Publishers. This is such an exceptional novel because it is richly filled with so much historical information from the gold miners who sought their own future in the Alaskan wilderness and how the railroad lines were laid at the cost of so many lives. Simply picking up the pieces of the life she has left, it shows great courage to reach out for an unknown future like Violet does. Some might frown on how quickly she finds love, but in reality, during those rough times, people didn't take long periods to court when the adverse conditions didn't allow for it. Sometimes you simply know the right person for you is the first person you meet along the path God has created for your future. I easily give this a 5 out of 5 stars and find myself desperately wanting to read the first two novels in this series!

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Beside Still Waters by AnnaLee Conti

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