Fiction, Romance, Fiction Subjects, Peoples & Cultures - Fiction

Distant Dreams

Name: Distant Dreams
Author: Judith Pella
ISBN: 9781556618628

by Judith Pella

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Overview

Only Her Father Understood her Love of the Unknown and the Promise ofDistant Dreams

Caught up in the excitement of America's westward expansion in 1835, fifteen-year-old Carolina Adams falls in love with the railroad. Living in a society that decidedly looks down on such aspirations in a woman, Carolina longs to study more masculine subjects such as science and advanced mathematics.

Fresh out of college, James must decide whether to join his father in the banking industry or pursue his own fascination with the railroad business. While recovering from an injury in a train derailment, James takes on a tutoring job at the Adams' plantation. He will serve as Carolina's teacher, but more important to his family, he will court Virginia, Carolina's beautiful older sister.

Overwhelmed by her father's surprise of a tutor, Carolina applies herself to her studies, while Virginia uses all of her southern charms to elicit a marriage proposal from James. But when Carolina's and James' mutual interests lead to unexpected feelings for each other, where will their dreams take them?

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Editorials

Library Journal

In a promising start to a new historical series, Pella (Blind Faith, Bethany, 1996) and Peterson (Entangled, Bethany, 1997) deliver an entertaining story with a dynamic female lead character. Carolina Adams is 15 years old in 1835, and the life of a typical woman in the South is not what she wants. She has become entranced with the new railroad, as is her tutor, James Baldwin. The two are attracted, but James bows to his family's wishes and becomes engaged to Carolina's older sister. When James breaks off the engagement to follow the railroad westward, Carolina puts their relationship in the hands of God. The ending does leave readers hanging, so expect a demand for the sequels.

School Library Journal

YAAndrew Jackson's presidency and accompanying intrigue form the historical setting for this novel. An almost consuming curiosity about things mechanical, and especially the new railroad, creates frequent conflicts for 15-year-old Carolina Adams. The inquisitive teen faces daily challenges from her family and peers in an age when it is feared that too much education may "cause insanity in women." Fascination for the sight, sound, and even the smell of locomotives isolates the young woman from her convention-bound mother and brings ridicule from her older, socially conscious sister. Only her father and her sister's fianc share her enthusiasm for this new iron monster and seem sympathetic to her appetite for information. Solvency of the national bank, westward expansion, and the wisdom of investing in railroad construction are at issue in this first volume of the series. Subplots include tension in gender roles, parental power, and sibling rivalryall topics as viable in the 1990s as in the 1830s.Janice DeLong, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA