Fire Along The Sky

The Into the Wilderness series ahhs been been one of my favourite historical fiction series to date. I read the series years ago and recently I've been working my way through listening to the books. Unfortunately, this time I wasn't as enamored with the Bonner clan. The things I loved about the books (the Bonner family - particularly Nathaniel and Elizabeth, the adventure and antics of the local people of Paradise, NY) felt very subdued and not all that interesting making the story drag throughout the middle.

My lackluster feelings are mainly from the fact that Fire Along The Sky picks up a decade after the last book, Lake in the Clouds. This jump in time forces Donati to tell her readers what has happened instead of showing them through the story. This time jump removed me from the story and affected my connection to the characters. Twins Lily and Daniel were 8 years old the last we saw them and now they're 18, and much of this book now focuses on Lily. She's not my favourite character and often came off as petulant rather than strong. I was excited to see that Hannah makes her return to Paradise, but she is kept in the background and is a shadow of her former self while my favourites, Nathaniel and Elizabeth, are kept squarely in the background.

I'm saddened that I didn't love this book as much as I did previously. It felt like there were a lot of minor story lines to keep readers busy, but they didn't add a lot to the plot leaving this book to feel like just a link between the third and fifth books in the series. Even though I remember loving the fifth and sixth books, Queen of Swords and The Endless Forest , I'm debating whether to stop listening to this series. While Kate Reading as narrator continues to do an amazing job telling the story, it's the story itself that has lost some of its magic for me this second time around.

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Sara Donati

Genre: Historical Fiction (US)

Type: e-audiobook

Series: #4 in Into the the Wilderness series
Narrator: Kate Reading

Source: Audible.ca

Publisher: Random House Audio

First Published in Print: 2005

First Line: Set free by the death of a husband she had not wanted 
nor ever learned to love, Jennett Scott Huntar of Carryckcastle 
left home for the new world on her twenty-eighth birthday.

Book Description from GoodReads: Sara Donati's bestselling saga of an American family's struggle for survival in the northeast wilderness continues. The year is 1812, and Nathaniel's daughter, Hannah, has returned to Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner. But mourning the loss of both husband and child, she is a shadow of a girl they once knew. Nonetheless, she resumes her medical duties in the village of Paradise, just as her cousin Jennet is reunited with Luke Bonner. But the war with the British is escalating, and Luke leaves to fight, as does eighteen-year-old Lily Bonner's twin brother Daniel. Lily makes a decision that sends her to Montreal and into the arms of a most unusual man - who could love her properly, if only she would let him. With so many loved ones away and in danger, Nathaniel and Elizabeth must draw strength from each other and those remaining at Lake in the Clouds.