After the sudden death of her husband, Clem Claridge, Marty finds herself out West with fall approaching--alone, pregnant, and penniless. When widower Clark Davis suggests she marry him so that his daughter has a mama, she hates that she has no choice but to accept his offer. In the months that follow, Marty, Clark, and Missie learn to live together through the harsh winter, but once spring comes, Marty will have a decision to make--stay with Clark and Missie or join the wagon train headed back East.
The first book of the Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke, opens the morning after Clem's accident and swiftly moves to introduce Marty, Clark and Missie, Ben Graham and his wife, and Wanda Marshall to the reader. By Chapter 3, Marty and Clark are married, and the rest of the story is mostly about the Davis family. Told primarily from Marty's point of view, Clark and Ma Graham also get a turn at sharing parts of the story through their eyes.
Since the reader spends so much time in Marty's head, it allows them to witness her evolution from someone who despises Clark and her situation to someone who truly loves him and wants to stay out West with her new family. One of the other evolutions that happens to Marty is from nonbeliever to believer. She prays to Clark's God for his safety when Clark is rescuing animals from his burning barn. She prays again when baby Clare is being rushed to the doctor. When Marty's revelation moment comes at the end of the novel, as she struggles to tell Clark that she loves him, one of the things she recalls is that he shared his God with her.
Though when I started Love Comes Softly yesterday, I felt uncertain how enjoyable it would be, I found myself staying up late to finish it. Part of the joy was in watching how scenes that were reimagined in the movies, were originally portrayed in the book. Here are a few that appear in the book and the movie:
- Clark's proposition to Marty after her husband's funeral
- Marty chasing chickens in the yard to make fried chicken for supper
- The Christmas day scene where they exchange gifts
- The birth of Marty's baby
- Marty playfully shoving Clark into the dirt and him chasing her, which leads to them almost kissing
The dialect continued to distract from the storyline, and the storyline for Laura Graham (who was older than she was in the movie) wasn't my favorite. However, Love Comes Softly is an engaging novel in the Christian fiction and inspirational romance genres. I look forward to reading the next book, Love's Enduring Promise.
- Publisher : Bethany House Publishers; Repack edition (April 1, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0764228323
- ISBN-13 : 978-0764228322
- Lexile measure : 940L
