Her Mother’s Hope-Francine Rivers

Her Mother’s Hope
Francine Rivers
Tyndale, Mar 16 2010, $24.99
ISBN 9781414318639

In 1901 Marta Schneider leaves her family behind in Steffisburg, Switzerland as she refuses to tolerate her Papa’s abuse towards her frail Mama, older brother, younger sister and her. Instead she plans to make it as an independent woman. She travels to Europe and crosses the ocean to Canada. Eventually she purchases a boardinghouse. She meets kind hearted German engineer Niclas Waltert.

The pair marries, crosses the Atlantic and works hard together while raising in a nice California lifestyle their three children. However, Marta thinks their oldest offspring Hildemara Rose is more like her cowardly maternal grandmother than her. Still she is surprised when Hildemara insists she wants to serve as a nurse during WWII because Mama knows her oldest child never displays her independence; Hildemara wants to gain the respect of her idol, her courageous Mama Marta.

This is an interesting family drama that focuses on a Mama and her oldest daughter in the first half of the twentieth century. The two women are filly developed while Niclas and the other two children serve as solid support players enhancing the understating of Marta and Hildemara. Although too many of the major events of the decades are highlighted so at times overwhelm the cast, fans will enjoy this fine epic as courage comes in many differing ways.

Harriet Klausner