Dawn on a Distant Shore

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars This book is the sequel to [b:Into the Wilderness|3067026|Into the Wilderness|Sara Donati|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255665925s/3067026.jpg|3098033], which I read late last year and really enjoyed. The story picks up right where it left off with a gripping series of scenes in which Elizabeth gives birth to twins at home on Hidden Wolf with only the help of her ten-year-old step-daughter. Meanwhile Nathaniel is trapped in the village by a blizzard, desperate to get home to his wife, whom he thinks is only having one baby. A good way to draw the reader into the story and what follows does not disappoint: an adventure with a long, twisting, turning plot with many characters and viewpoints, romance, danger show more and surprises.The Bonners travel to Canada and Scotland, through wilderness and by sea. Ms. Donati writes very descriptively, and there's no doubt she brings settings and details into vivid life, but sometimes I felt like there was too much attention paid to detail and conversely there were several instances where I felt like not enough attention had been paid to the meat of the story. All of the storylines come to a head in the last few pages and thus the climactic scenes felt rushed and conclusions to a couple of storylines were not thoroughly fleshed out; I didn't feel completely satisfied. One example: near the end Nathaniel has to make a startling revelation to Elizabeth, but the reader is not privy to that conversation or to her reaction to the news. Some of the plot twists were a little over-the-top, but I once read that if you can write great characters, your reader will go along with anything you throw at them, and Ms. Donati has a real talent for writing characters that are complex and realistic and that readers become attached to. A large chunk of this book is devoted to Hannah, Nathaniel's tender-hearted half-Indian daughter, who struggles to come to terms with the cruelty and bigotry of others, and to find her place in the world as a child of two races. I was glad to get to know her so well and my heart ached for her. She is much changed by the end of their journey and there is a very fitting and meaningful rite of passage at the end for her. Overall I enjoyed this sequel. I've grown attached to the characters and I'm moving right along to the next book in the series, [b:Lake in the Clouds|72855|Lake in the Clouds (Wilderness, #3)|Sara Donati|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170819135s/72855.jpg|845657]. show less

In the midst of late 1700s political tensions, a series of events lead to Elizabeth and her family in Scotland engaging an earl.

Loved the political and historical narrative, but I found the plot a bit convoluted and farfetched (and I miss Paradise!). Then also, having spent fifty hours immersed in Kate Reading's narration of this series the past couple weeks, I'm thinking it's time to move on to some other fare and come back fresh and wanting more later.

I read Into the Wilderness on the recommendation of a friend and I fell in love. The second book in the series did not disappoint. I love the dynamic between Elizabeth and Nathaniel, and the development of all of the main characters is superb. They are all human, flaws and character traits and all, which is what makes them so appealing.
In this book they set sail for Scotland, unwillingly, and they take the reader along for quite an adventure.

I am so glad I returned to this book and series! After having dnfed it several years after reading about 20% of the print book, I started this book over by audio. The narration is done really well and the story is strong, complex and interesting. The beginning is definitely slow, but after the first 20% I was hooked. Great historical novel.

Book 2 of the "Into the Wilderness" series - in reading some reviews it appears that some found this lengthy without content - I however enjoyed the continued escapades and near death experiences of the "Bonner Family Saga" - Nathaniel and Elizabeth now parents of more than just Hannah find themselves on an unplanned voyage to Scotland to lay claim to a family estate that is neither wanted or revered - The story ends with sadness and tragedy and with an interesting twist to continue into Book 3. As a true fan of "Outlander" it is NOT the same, worse or better...but finishing that series this series is interesting enough for me to continue on the journey with Elizabeth and Nathaniel.

So I should definitely explain why I'm only giving this book a 3. I loved Into the Wilderness because it fit precisely into the very narrow window of my kind of book - which involves a historical love story of two people meeting and falling in love. Obviously Dawn on a Distant Shore could never fit into that window, for the simple reason that that part of the story already happened in ITW. I knew this going into DOADS, but I periodically try to break out of my narrow window and, given how much I loved ITW, I thought this had a good shot. But the entire time I just wanted to see more of Elizabeth and Nathaniel's relationship (which it did have a fair amount of, but not the part that I enjoy and woven into so much else going on). show more Understandably the author had started to move beyond just them and their relationship - and again, to be fair, she had already sepnt 900 pages on that in ITW - apparently that just wasn't enough for me! :)

I also loved the setting of ITW in the NY wilderness in the late 18th century and DOADS takes the Bonners to Montreal, sailing acorss the Atlantic and then Scotland. Almost no time is spent in NY.

DOADS is more of an adventure story than ITW was. The narrative also switches from Elizabeth to Hannah quite a bit. As I understand it, the following books focus more on Hannah so it makes sense that Donati is setting that up.

Another small (tiny really) problem I had was the plot line with Luke which gelt a little rushed/tacked on onto the end. That never felt completely developed to me.

All of this said, DOADS is a well written (although the Scots was a little hard to understand sometimes, I've read better accents before)and entertaining book and I can totally understand why most other people have given it 4s and 5s. For me though, I was missing Elizbaeth and Nathaniel as they fell in love and kept taking breaks to go back to ITW and reread my favorite parts from that. show less

I love this whole trilogy. The writing is superb. The characters are enchanting, entrancing, entertaining and totally fleshed out. There are so many interesting things going on in the era that it takes place -- Indians, Slaves, Catholicism in Scotland...but most of all I love this series for it's herbal folk medicine.