Posts Tagged: Dean Hughes

Deseret Book Blog Tour- Through Cloud and Sunshine by Dean Hughes

12 Aug, 2013 by Heather in Through Cloud and Sunshine Leave a comment

Through Cloud and Sunshine
Come to Zion Volume #2
by Dean Hughes
Hardcover, 328 Pages
Published June 13, 2013
by Deseret Book
Book Source: publisher
Adult
Religious Fiction
4 stars

Book summary from Goodreads: Nauvoo was supposed to be the kingdom of God on earth, but Will and Liz Lewis are learning that it takes more than dreaming of Zion to make it a reality. Sickness, poverty, and just plain human nature add to the struggles for the Lord’s people, but every now and then a glimpse of heaven shines through. Just when things are starting to get settled, though, the old problems start rearing their heads, leaving Will and others wondering if they will be there to reap the harvest they have so carefully sown.

Meanwhile, Jeff and Abby—in modern-day Nauvoo—are dealing with challenges of their own. As their newborn baby fights for his life, they must come to grips with their personal faith. Can they, like their ancestors, continue to trust in God when there seems to be no trace of Him in their trials?

Beloved novelist Dean Hughes skillfully interweaves the stories of two couples separated by five generations and 150 years, providing a unique perspective on Church history and showing how much we can learn from those who went before us.

Review: Liz and Will Lewis dream and hope for Zion, the gathering place of their followers and a warm nice, place to call home. Expecting their first child, father, Will feels he must make his promise to Liz’s family to build her up a good home must be realized. But life in Nauvoo is hard, with land to be tilled and crops to be planted. And Liz, well with child feels she is seeing less and less of her husband and he works day and night. The moist land makes a breeding ground for disease and resentment.

Volume two of Come to Zion, picks up right where book one left off, with a great synopsis in the first chapter for readers who haven’t had a chance to read the first in the series. It is again written in dual perspective between two families, one living in the present day as descendants to another living in the historical time period of Joseph Smith.

Dean Hughes does a wonderful job of reminding us that Zion may not be a place, but rather a feeling and a hope as he outlines life in Nauvoo. There are ill feeling amongst neighbors, political unrest and rumor, as well as increasing religious intolerance. Each family struggles with their own trials of infant mortality and trying to make ends meet. Some arrive to Zion with only the belongings they could bring from their own countries and no money or house to call their own.

I love the research Mr. Hughes puts in to all his book as well as the detail. He lived in Nauvoo, so is familiar with the streets, the shops and feel of the land. If you like historical fiction you will love this series and I recommend Come to Zion volumes 1-2 to any who want to feel they are right there in the time and place of our early American Saints.

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 by Dean Hughes

30 Jul, 2013 by Heather 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.

Find out more about author Dean Hughes: Goodreads

Book Review- The Winds and the Waves

18 Jul, 2012 by Heather 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.

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.

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