Good Reads
‘The Road We Traveled’ offers a new meaning of hardship
Veronica Speedwell is off on a charming, fast-paced story
veryone loves a good story. And award-winning Jane Kirkpatrick gives us great ones. Stories of love and laughter, pain and heartache, good times celebrated and bad times overcome. But always, always her stories allow us to become a part of another life, another land, another experience that somehow “A life that is worth influences our own writing at all, is worth stories. writing minutely and “The Road We Traveled” introduces truthfully.” Longfellow. us to Tabby Brown, the She penned it in her “Mother of Oregon,” as memoir. This was a we travel from Missouri truth, but perhaps a along the Oregon Trail little embellishment now with her family. and then wouldn’t hurt “Hardship” has a new meaning for me either. A story should be after reading her story. interesting after all. (Could I have endured?) Go or stay? Which trails to follow? Known trails with known fears or new ones with uncertainty ahead? Decisions are made with love and a wisdom that comes from generations of family fortitude. With determination, a good shot of stubbornness and her indomitable spirit, Tabby’s journey to a new future allows her to discover her and her family’s unrealized strengths. We learn, too, that “family is stronger than fear.” Oh, and there’s Beatrice the chicken – every good story should have a chicken. We all have wings. – Deb Laslie
have been brought up to do good works and to conduct myself with propriety and decorum, and yet I am forever doing the unexpected. Something always gives me away for what I really am.” “And what are you, child?” “Miss Speedwell, I have “A woman in search of adventure.” hiked the length of the And so we meet Amazon River. I have Veronica Speedwell been accosted by native in Deanna Raybourn’s tribes and shot twice. I series starting with “A have nearly met my death Curious Beginning.” by quicksand, snakebite, I was delighted it finally worked its way poisoned arrows, and to the top of my pile. one particularly fiendish It’s a charming, well jaguar. And I have never, written story, fastuntil this moment, been paced plot with lots of quite so surprised by twists and turns and anything as I am by you.” believable characters I love (well, except for the bad guys). Best of all it made me smile. Miss Veronica Speedwell and her companion, the bad-tempered (but “well proportioned”) natural historian Stoker, apply their talents in hopes of determining just who is trying to kill her – and for heaven’s sake, why? She’s just a self-taught lepidopterist with a lethal hat pin and excellent manners. Enjoy! – Deb Laslie
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