Review - The Wind and the Waves

The Winds and the Waves by Dean Hughes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Plot (from Goodreads.com): 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.

Obviously, this book is the first in a series.  It ends not with the cliffhanger that series usually do, to make you want to read the next in the series.  The story was adequate but not spectacular.  There were a lot of similarities to other historical fiction, though I can't remember the title.  And jumping from the past to the present while having two concurrent stories happening was a little difficult to read.  I would only recommend the title when the series is done so that the reader can read the whole story, not just parts of it. It may then be easier to understand the story and how the characters really relate to each other.

I am now reading Winter of the World by Ken Follett.