Happy Friday Friends :)
I pray you've all had a wonderful week, and that you're all looking forward to the weekend.
My week has been slightly on the stressful side and our area has also been under extreme heat warnings for the past few days. Needless to say, I've been enjoying spending some time curled up with my book in our nice air conditioned house. I'm not the biggest fan of summer in general, although there is always something to appreciate about each of the distinct seasons that our Heavenly Father has blessed us with.
Today I'm going to be sharing with you all my review of a recently released Christian historical fiction title, set during World War Two.
I hope you'll all keep reading down below to find out what I ended up thinking about this much hyped book by other book bloggers.
Until Our Time Comes by Nicole C. Miller:
Source: Complimentary Copy Provided by the Publisher as Part of the Revell Reads Blogger Program
Publisher: Revell
Publication Date: July 2nd, 2024
Genre: Christian Fiction/Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
American horse trainer Adia Kensington is living her dream of working at the famous Janów Podlaski stables in Poland, where they breed the best Arabian horses in the world. But her plans to bring the priceless stallion Lubor to the US are derailed when the German army storms into her adopted country in 1939. Little does she know this is just the beginning of six long years of occupation that will threaten her beloved horses at every turn.
Major Bret Conway is at Janów Podlaski under the guise of a news reporter, but his true mission is intelligence gathering for the British. That and keeping Adia safe, which is harder and harder to do as she insists they must evacuate 250 horses to save them from being stolen, sold, or eaten by the invading forces. What follows will test their physical, mental, and emotional strength, as well as their faith in God, humankind, and each other.
Drawn from true events of World War II, this epic story of escape, capture, resistance, and love from debut novelist Nicole M. Miller will thunder into your heart like a herd of beautiful horses across a raging river.
(synopsis from goodreads)
My Review:
As someone who has been a longtime fan of historical fiction set during World War II, I was eagerly anticipating getting to read this one. I especially enjoy finding original stories within the genre, and learning something new along the way. Going into this debut novel, I knew next to nothing about Janow Podlaski, and the famous horse breeding program, and I kept hearing nothing but great things from every other review I read prior. I fully expected to love this one, but unfortunately that didn't end up being the case,. I ended up feeling like I read a different book than the one everyone else was raving about.
While I applaud Nicole M. Miller's love of horses, and the way she was able to combine that love with her fascination of this time period in crafting her debut novel, unfortunately I had a terribly hard time making my way through this one. The characters were not exactly likeable, and Adia in particular was one that never ended up growing on me the further along I moved into the story. The writing was actually quite good, but there's a lot of info dumping, especially throughout the first two parts of the story, and sometimes I struggled with even wanting to stay invested in the story.
I did enjoy Bret's character slightly more than I did Adia's, but he still wasn't a protagonist I truly came to care that much about. When Adia makes certain decisions that made me cringe inwardly, I wasn't a fan of the way Bret went along with everything she decided, as it just seemed really out of character and honestly made no sense.
While I respect the fact that most readers had a positive experience with this one, I'm sorry to say that I couldn't get behind Adia's selfishness that is portrayed over and over again throughout the course of the story. As people are dying, being imprisoned, going without the basic necessities of life; it was beyond frustrating that all she seemed to care about was her beloved horses, and made risk worthy and juvenile decisions to save them over and over again. I kept waiting for someone to finally tell her that it wasn't worth putting human lives at risk for the horses' sake, but unfortunately that never happened.
While I'm definitely an animal lover, this started to feel like a situation where idols were being made from four legged creatures, and it didn't sit right with me. I struggled to even want to finish this one unfortunately, which was sad because it's such an original idea for a story set during this time period.
Final Rating: 2/5
Unfortunately, I won't be personally recommending this one or rereading in the future, but I wouldn't be opposed to giving the author another try in the future.
Thanks so much to Revell Publishing for allowing me to read and review this title!
I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher (Revell) as part of the Revell Reads Blogger Program. I was not required to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and this is my honest review.
Thanks so much for reading guys! Have a great rest of your weekend :)
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