A disgraced journalist moves into her great aunt's secret-laden farmhouse and discovers that the women in her family were testaments to true love and courage in the face of war, persecution, and racism.
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A disgraced journalist moves into her great aunt's secret-laden farmhouse and discovers that the women in her family were testaments to true love and courage in the face of war, persecution, and racism.
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We Hope for Better Things is set in Detroit and Lapeer County, Michigan in the 1860s, 1960s and current day. It seems as if Detroit has most always been hoping for better things, even during its more prosperous years there was an undercurrent of unrest and dissatisfaction. Erin Bartels spent years crafting this story of race in America over generations of the Balsam family. It is a tender story that will both touch and prick your heart.
Mary Balsam and her husband Nathaniel were abolitionists during the Civil War era. Nathaniel fought on the side of the Union, and Mary took in former slaves who helped her run the family farm, their lives becoming tightly intertwined. Nora Balsam became Nora Rich when she chose to step away from her privileged upbringing in the outskirts of Detroit to marry William Rich, a young black photographer. William had great plans for making a difference, but in an effort to protect his wife from those in his own community that resented her, moved to her family farm, once run by Mary. Elizabeth Balsam, once a well-known journalist in the Detroit area, lost her position at the paper, and also moved to the family farm to temporarily live with and check on an elderly aunt who had been living there. While at the farm she began to unlock the history of the Balsam family, a history that might be considered a microcosm of the history of the area and possibly of our nation.
I recommend this timely story, and am grateful to have received a copy from Revell Publishing through LibraryThing. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review and received no monetary compensation.
Angelique M
Jan 1, 2019
Multi-generational Historical Fiction
Three women from three time periods, each confronting prejudice and racism. That's what I was expecting this book to be about, and it was. However, what I was not expecting is that there would be three separate love stories as well. That still could have been OK, but given the circumstances of one of the romances, I could not root for the couple, and I ended up thinking less of the characters involved.
The book started out well enough. As I met Elizabeth, Nora, and Mary in turn, I found that I liked and wanted to know more about each woman.
The pacing seemed good, and the story moved smoothly between the three timelines, but sometimes many months would pass before we saw a character again. That didn't leave much room for character development.
Still, I believe most fans of multi-generational historical fiction will enjoy this. Thank you to BookishFirst for the copy of this book.
