Posts Categorized: The Winds and the Waves

Book Review- The Winds and the Waves by Dean Hughes

30 Jul, 2013 by in Shadow Mountain, The Winds and the Waves Leave a comment

The Winds and the Waves (Come to Zion #1)

by Dean Hughes

Hardcover, 444 pages

Published May 2012

by Deseret Book

ISBN: 7816090705
Genre: Historical Fiction
Age: Adult

Book source: publisher

4 1/2 stars

Book Summary from Goodreads: Will Lewis is stuck. the class system in England in the 1840s seems destined to keep him in his place as a poor tenant farmer who cannot improve his lot and will never be able to marry the woman he loves. But the “new religion” that is sweeping through congregations of the United Brethren, Will’s church, may hold the key to the better life he longs for. As he listens to the preaching of Wilford Woodruff, he almost dares to hope for the Zion the young Apostle describes.

Will’s struggles to believe and to face the rigors of immigrating to an unknown land are paralleled by the modern-day story of Jeff and Abby, a young married couple facing challenges of their own. When Jeff begins digging into his family history, he finds himself particularly drawn to “Grandpa Lewis,” an ancestor whose life was more like his than he would have imagined.

The skillful interweaving of these two stories brings Church history to life while demonstrating how much we can learn from those who went before us. Anyone who has ever faced the winds and the waves, in some form, will love this novel.

Review: This is the first Dean Hughes novel I have ever picked up and what drew me in were the historical elements and rich authentic detail of his writing. Mr. Hughes has researched out the setting, speech, and every day way of life of his characters.  In this case, story of Will, an Englishman living with his family as a tenant under the rule of a squire. He is wary of the religious fervor of the United Brethren and feels stuck in his place, without opportunity to improve on his circumstances to win the heart of Liz, the solicitor’s daughter. Willis cast out from his town and farm after choosing to try to trap his own meat on the squires land. Thrust into the real world and a harsh work camp, starving, and at times homeless he beings to rely on first his own strength, and later on the small whisperings of his heart.

Eventually the reader also experiences what life was for immigrants coming by ship from England to America. I had no idea how long and treacherous the journey was, nor how sick the passengers would become from indigent conditions. Infants were lost, grown men and women grew ill and died. Most make it to America and then take a steam boat up the Mississippi to find Zion. Here again we get a clear picture of what the trip would have been like, the sights, sounds and trails those who traveled would have seen. I was carried there by the rich world building and character development that occurs in the old world.

What set it back for me a bit was the present day parallel plot of Will’s descendants trying to make it as a young married couple in Nauvoo. I feel like I just could not connect with either the husband or wife, so at times the storyline dragged for me because I wanted to get back to Will and Liz’s story instead of Jeff and Abby’s.

I have already started book 2 in the series, so the answer is, yes, I enjoyed it enough that I’m excited for the next book. It was amazing to see how the timing of this read corresponded to my own family history research of my pioneer ancestors that traveled form England to Zion. The experiences were the same and historically correct! I even found one of my ancestors as an author of a book listed in Mr. Hughe’s references in the back.

Overall- fascinating, well crafted historical fiction that gives us a good taste of tenant farms in England, immigration to the United Sates, life along the Mississippi and Nauvoo, Illinois.


Content: Some intense violence, lots of fist fights and one involving a knife.

About the Author: Dean Hughes is the author of more than eighty books for young readers, including the popular sports series Angel Park All-Stars, the Scrappers series, the Nutty series, the widely acclaimed companion novels Family Pose and Team Picture, and Search and Destroy. Soldier Boys was selected for the 2001 New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list. Dean Hughes and his wife, Kathleen, have three children and six grandchildren. They live in Midway, Utah.

Find out more about author Dean Hughes: Goodreads

Book Review- The Winds and the Waves

18 Jul, 2012 by in The Winds and the Waves Leave a comment

The Winds and the Waves (Come to Zion #1)
by Dean Hughes
Hardcover, 444 pages
Published May 2012
by Deseret Book
ISBN: 7816090705
Book source: publisher
4 1/2 stars
Book Summary from goodreads: Will Lewis is stuck. the class system in England in the 1840s seems destined to keep him in his place as a poor tenant farmer who cannot improve his lot and will never be able to marry the woman he loves. But the “new religion” that is sweeping through congregations of the United Brethren, Will’s church, may hold the key to the better life he longs for. As he listens to the preaching of Wilford Woodruff, he almost dares to hope for the Zion the young Apostle describes.


Will’s struggles to believe and to face the rigors of immigrating to an unknown land are paralleled by the modern-day story of Jeff and Abby, a young married couple facing challenges of their own. When Jeff begins digging into his family history, he finds himself particularly drawn to “Grandpa Lewis,” an ancestor whose life was more like his than he would have imagined.


The skillful interweaving of these two stories brings Church history to life while demonstrating how much we can learn from those who went before us. Anyone who has ever faced the winds and the waves, in some form, will love this novel.
Cathy’s review: Will is a young farmer in England in the 1840’s, he’s the oldest son so he stands to inherit his father’s place on Squire Riddle’s estate. The problem is that the system in England was not very pleasant. The squires were taking a lot of the crops that the tenant farmers grew and not really giving them anything in return, they were not allowed to hunt on the estate, the squires considered that poaching and the penalty for poaching was being kicked off their farm and left to wander wherever the could.  Knowing all this, Will set his trap anyway and ended up being caught, he was forced to leave and asked to never return. This caused will to wander to distant cities looking for factory work, but he soon realized that none of the factories were hiring any new people, and had to take a hard back-breaking job of laying railroad track. This job payed a lot more money than a factory job would have but the risks were much higher, being badly injured or even death in some cases. Unfortunately, he knew that the Liz, the girl he was in love with, would not look kindly upon his work and her father even less so. When Will is badly injured, he knows he must go home, if only for a little bit, and there he finds his family and Liz’s family have converted to a new religion. This religion seems to him to not be a good thing, but he himself is unable to doubt when he hears the Apostle Wilford Woodruff’s testimony. But will Liz’s father be able to see the changes he’s making in his life and allow him to marry his daughter?
I really enjoyed this book, I had a hard time wanting to put it down. The story of Will is compelling, it’s hard to imagine just how their lives would have been, the 1840’s in England was not a place that I would ever have wanted to live! I liked too the story of his great-grandson that parallels Will’s. Jeff and Abby too went through many trials. I had no idea that this was part of a series when I was reading it, so I got to the end and was kind of grumpy about the seemingly no resolution to the plot, but now I can’t wait for the next volume in this series to learn more about what happened to Will, Liz, Jeff and Abby.
Content: Clean

About the Author: Dean Hughes is the author of more than eighty books for young readers, including the popular sports series Angel Park All-Stars, the Scrappers series, the Nutty series, the widely acclaimed companion novels Family Pose and Team Picture, and Search and Destroy. Soldier Boys was selected for the 2001 New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list. Dean Hughes and his wife, Kathleen, have three children and six grandchildren. They live in Midway, Utah.
Find out more about author Dean Hughes: Goodreads