If the height of the high doesn’t at least match the depth of the low, then the story is more depressing than uplifting and I’m not quite as satisfied when I turn the final page. I’m firmly in the camp that in the best stories, the high has to be equal to the low. This story uses that misery to manipulate the emotion I felt towards the romantic relationship–well played Amy Harmon, but DANG! These characters experienced some really sad stuff. Spoiler alert (not really–we’ve all played the video game!): traveling the Oregon Trail was miserable.

I enjoyed this part of the story too, although I personally like my love stories more as a side dish than a main course. Native Americans Chiefs, real Frontiersman, actual geographic locations along the Trail–it’s all there, and it’s great.Ī couple of the fictional characters fall in love along the way, and their love story is exactly the kind of slow burn, big finale event I learned I should expect from Amy Harmon. I’m a sucker for that, and I thought it was really a really cool part of Where the Lost Wander. The history is so well written with the fiction it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Along they way, the fictional characters meet all kinds of historical characters in context.

The story follows a wagon train of fictional characters as they travel the Oregon Trail in search of a new life. Where the Lost Wander is historical fiction. But I wanted to illustrate this point: Amy Harmon is doing a really great job writing on the edge of the one genre I generally avoid–romance. Now, my readers know I’m not nearly that shallow I’m actually a very well-rounded reader. Hook me with a gateway genre then push the harder stuff when I’m too weak to turn it down. No swords or robots or spaceships or wizards in sight. That’s how she hooked me, and now Amy Harmon’s got me reading girl books with swirly girl-writing superimposed over a scenic view with covered wagons on the cover. My first experience with Amy Harmon was The First Girl Child and The Second Blind Son, which was her first efforts in fantasy–Amy was kind enough to leave her comfort zone to come into mine. I’m not Amy Harmon’s target demographic, but I sure enjoy a good story.

Love and Tragedy on the American Frontier

Where the lost wander book review