My wife had listened to this on audio book and said it was a good book that dealt with Nova Scotia, where my relatives came from. I found it a bit slow at first as it wasn't in Nova Scotia but England and Boston. Then about half way through there was a thunderstorm of events taking place and everyone was tying together. At times I didn't know how everyone was related and had a hard time keeping track of them. I don't know if that was purposeful. Anne and Thomas and Gordon and Nicole were confusing because their lives were similar with similar ages and the author in alternating chapters kept switching around to different people. I tried to follow. The end was grand to tie in English people, Americans, and Acadians in New Orleans and near the Bay of Fundy and thus was quite a trick and very satisfying. It helped us see how these divergent peoples and backgrounds could live together. Another example of that was Thomas' decision with the Acadian and British farmers who quarreled over the farm that the Acadian had been expelled from years earlier. At the very end was, of course, when the Acadian woman found she was related to her British friend and was now "kin."
Thoughts on the entire series.With these novels, I joined the ranks of readers who know what it is to be in the midst of a series, waiting, even with bated breath, for the next book in the series to be published.I appreciate the style and language that Bunn clearly brought into this co-written historical fiction saga with Oke. I remember being totally engrossed and on edge during a certain crucial stretch in The Meeting Place and was floored by the unembellished end to that nerve-racking rush: “And then it began to rain.” I grew attached to the characters over the course of the series, though I’ll admit I got a bit weary during the fifth novel, as while some of the characters were yet making more grand departures from one another, I lost the sense of what they were actually getting done, apart from moving around the globe.I might’ve been missing and/or forgetting things, though, weary in general after doing so much waiting, and I don’t regret a minute I spent with this saga.
