Almost Home is the perfect read. It tells the story of how and why people made the decision to travel west and then describes the joys and sorrows of the journey. It contains all the required elements for a great novel including love, war, and adventure. The book pulls the reader along making the book hard to put down. The main characters Lissa, Wally, and Lars are not overdone yet give the story a nice flavor adding just the right ingredients to delight the reader.

Melissa, nicknamed Lissa, is a teen just ready to be married. Wally, her younger brother makes carved toys, which his father at first thinks is a waste of time and energy. Lars is a Norwegian immigrant who falls in love with Lissa from the beginning, but he believes he has no chance to make her his wife: what he would like very much to do. Along the way, they face sickness and death making Lissa wonder why they ever left Philadelphia in the first place. Not until the very end does one come to realize the significance of the title.

This book is one I will recommend to my friends and anyone who likes to read historical fiction. The whole book appeared appropriate for all ages. It included the coming of age of a young girl, but it told the situation in a very non-graphic, sensitive way so that adults wouldn't be embarrassed to read it to their children. Then later when Lissa experiences childbirth, the non-graphic way the author told the story made the book a precious one to add to any collection. It showed the trials and tribulations of meeting Indians, losing parents, and experiencing nature's fury, as well as the everyday trials that go along with travels in a covered wagon in the 1860s. This book would benefit any writer of that era for its descriptions are colorful and believable. I cannot praise this author enough.

Reviewed By Julie Thomas-Zucker
© February 2005