Book Review Monday

Hello everyone! I hope you had a good weekend.
I am very excited to say that today I will be reviewing Forsaken Dreams by MaryLu Tyndall! Find it on Amazon and check out the author's blog.
Here is a book description from the back cover: "They Left Everything Behind to Build a New Southern Utopia
Colonel Blake Wallace has seen enough death to last a lifetime. Weary and disillusioned, he slumps beneath the weight of defeat and loss. With his entire family murdered by the North and his name appearing on a list of officers wanted for war crimes, Blake organizes a shipload of southerners who, like him, long to escape the horrors of war and start a new life in a verdant land called Brazil.

Eliza Crawford can barely remember the days of her youth spent in opulence and comfort at her Georgian home. She can't help but wonder how different her life would be had she not met her late husband, Stanton Watts, a general in the Northern army. Now a war widow, Eliza is rejected by both North and South. Desperate to keep her marriage a secret and escape her past and pain, she longs to start over again in Brazil.

But once the voyage begins, troubles abound. Dangers at sea and enemies from within threaten to keep Blake and Eliza from the new life—and love—they long for."

What an awesome description! I know I couldn't wait to start reading when I saw that.
Here is my review:

Each of MaryLu Tyndall’s books gets better and better as new ones are published, which is saying a lot, because I have loved every single one of them!

Forsaken Dreams is no exception. It encompasses many page-turning qualities that I loved: adventure, romance, and a thrilling plot-line.

This story centers around a group of Southerners who leave everything they once lost home to start a new life in Brazil after the devastations of the Civil War. They hope to create their own Southern Utopia in the new land which is called a paradise. What is amazing is that this really happened in history. I never knew that before, but Southern colonists really went to Brazil in hopes of creating a utopia!

Colonel Blake Wallace, who lost his whole family in the war, leads this group, wanting the very same goal as them: a new life. He wants to escape his past and all the memories of the war and begin again. Blake suffers from PTSD and a limp, both resulting from the war. I really liked this character, and MaryLu Tyndall displayed his conflicting emotions beautifully. She has a true, God-given talent for creating amazingly real characters and edge-of-the-seat plots.

Eliza Crawford also goes on this journey to escape her past, one she doesn’t want anyone else to find out about. She was raised a Southerner, but after her mother died and her father became very protective, she became rebellious. She married a general in the Northern army before the war began, against her father’s bidding, and was disowned by her remaining family. When her husband died in the war, Eliza was rejected by both the North and the South, even after serving as a nurse for Southern soldiers. She goes in the voyage to escape her past and hide the secret of the man she married. Eliza was another character I enjoyed, and I was always eager to keep reading to discover her fate. And when she and Colonel Wallace begin to fall in love, she fears he could never forgive her for marrying the enemy.

This story is also filled with a full cast of well-developed minor characters who truly seemed like real people.

The colonist’s voyage is threatened, however, by countless events that seem to plague them. Mysterious fog, enemies chasing them, and terrible storms follow them all the way, but God is always with them.

I enjoy reading but I don’t say this very often: I literally felt like I was living inside of these pages because it was so wonderfully written.

I definitely recommend this to anyone; especially to readers who enjoy history, romance, adventure, mystery, or a sea-faring tale. You will not regret reading it.

What are your thoughts on this book? Does it look like something you would read?