Wednesday, January 21, 2015

"The Wedding Journey" by Cheryl St. John

About the Book

The mysterious inheritance is the answer to a prayer. Now Irish lass Maeve Murphy and her sisters can come to America! She's sure happiness awaits her, even if it won't—can't—come from widowed ship doctor Flynn Gallagher. Yes, he made her his assistant, but she's not foolish enough to fall for the man all the eligible, wealthy female passengers admire.

Flynn Gallagher may have his pick of ladies, but only one cares as he does for the sick and poor. Flynn vowed never to marry another woman who could break his heart. With Maeve, has his heart found safe harbor at last?


This book was released in April 2012
The book comes from my own personal collection for review


My Review

“The Wedding Journey” by Cheryl St. John is the first book in the 'Irish Brides' continuous series. I first read this series when it came out in 2012 and enjoyed it greatly to where I just wanted to reread them, but sadly my library no longer had the full series. I was lucky though to find the series in a local second hand shop and thoroughly enjoyed this book as much as I did the first time I read the book. I am writing a review now because frankly when I first read the series, I didn't think it was all that important in writing reviews, but I have apparently come to reconsider that point of view.

This is a story that takes place over a fairly short period of time, of anywhere from a few weeks to a month, but with the close confines of being on a ship, made the fast development believable and so sweet. It is a pet peeve of mine for stories to be written in a short period of time and the romance develop in such a way that it is nothing but a fairy tale, but this story is nothing like that. There are close quarters and plenty of time to interact with each other not to mention a few emergencies that make things seem like they have spent a great deal more time together than they really did.

Maeve is a woman who really has nothing behind her and a whole lot in front of her, whatever that may be, and she is facing that future with great courage. Maeve is a woman who is able to find the silver lining to just about everything in life and everyone, or at least nearly everyone. When she can't find that silver lining, she goes to her strength in her faith to look for what she is needed. Her faith is quiet but there for all to see, for it is in her actions, her words and thoughts as well. Maeve's heart is one that is so tender but she finds another type of strength for she allows her heart to lead into situations that most might run from. She wants to help people but she doesn't allow her compassion to overwhelm her to where she is finding herself over her head, for somehow she has found that decent compromise between caring too much and not enough.

Flynn is a man who has known loss in his life and as a result focused his life on something else. His focus made changes in the lives of others but it seems to have stilted in him a lot of ways. From almost the get go of the book, one can see that this is a man who has suffered and is still suffering but we dont know the full story until later on the book. Once the story is out, it begins to make sense. There is a great strength in Flynn along with a strong desire to help, which I would hope would be in any doctor, but there is something else about him as well to where it is hard to fully describe this remarkable man.

It seems to me that one thing about this book that nearly every character could relate to was that of loss and a hope of a brighter future. The various stages of loss is apparent throughout as well as how each person is dealing with the loss. The hope of that brighter future is not openly spoken about too often but it is there when the future is spoken of and through the actions of everyone. It is a great reminder that we all have some dark days, but the sun will shine again and the new day will be bright.

I hope all who read this book and series enjoys it as much as I did both times around.


Other "Irish Brides" Books 

The Wedding Journey
The Mistaken Bride
A Baby Between Them

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