From This Day Forward

From This Day Forward by Lauraine Snelling is the conclusion to Song of Blessing series. Deborah MacCallister is the head nurse at the hospital in Blessing, North Dakota. Deborah also handles many of the administrative tasks. Deborah is helping Anji and Thomas Devlin to get ready for their wedding and she wonders if she will ever get married. Deborah is twenty-five and has been in love with Toby Valders since they were in school. But Deborah is not sure that Toby reciprocates her feelings. The town is growing by leaps and bounds. The only problem is lack of help. They need more workers to help with the construction. The high school needs a new teacher and Jonathon recommends his cousin, Anton Gendarme. Anton is a handsome fellow and the ladies in town decide to fix him up with Deborah. They go out of their way to push the two of them together. Deborah enjoys Anton's company, but her heart belongs to Toby. Toby is extremely busy with the new building projects and only has time to sleep. Deborah decides to help him out by leaving him food and doing his laundry. Toby starts leaving little notes for Deborah (its progress). Then Deborah leaves town for some long overdue training. Will Toby realize that his future belongs with Deborah? Read From This Day Forward to see how Ingeborg Bjorklund, her family, and friends are faring in Blessing.

From This Day Forward had a slower pace than the other novels in the series. It is mostly about the daily lives of the Bjorklund family and friends in Blessing. We get to see how everyone is faring in Blessing and get a nice conclusion to the series. The book was just not as special as Lauraine Snelling's other novels (she can do so much better). It is hard to pinpoint but something was missing. The book is well-written, but I found the book to be predictable. I give From This Day Forward 3 out of 5 stars. I thought too much time was devoted to Deborah thinking about Toby, her life, what was Toby thinking, is Anton the right guy for her, Toby versus Anton, etc. I wanted to shake Deborah and tell her to grow up (put on her big girl panties and go talk to Toby). There is also quite a bit of time devoted to prayer (several times each chapter). Prayer is wonderful and essential in life (my personal feelings), but it seemed more like filler in the book. The novel was longer than it needed to be. I felt is needed some editing and it would have made it a better book. From This Day Forward is not a stand-alone novel. If you try to read this book without having enjoyed the other novels in the series, you will be lost. You would also need to read more than the book in the Song of Blessing series. You would need to go back to the very beginning to the Red River of the North series (which is wonderfully written and heartwarming).