Do you love historical fiction? I do! I always have. When I was a kid I used to read the Dear America series. Did anyone else read those? I love reading stories about events that actually happened and how the people who were involved probably felt, thought, and behaved.
If you like historical fiction, then you will love pretty much any of Gerald N. Lund’s books. He’s well known for writing the Work and the Glory series, which I loved, among many other series.
This book – Only the Brave – is a great read!
Only the Brave is a sequel to the book The Undaunted. Alan and I listened to that book on our trip to and from California two years ago. But the nice thing about this book is that you don’t need to have read The Undaunted to understand and appreciate Only the Brave. In this book, he introduces new main characters which he is actually going to put in another series he’s writing!
I love in Only the Brave that Gerald N. Lund shows you his research at the end of each chapter so you know exactly what happened and what he made up. This is such an interesting story about what it was like to be one of the “hole in the rock” pioneers. These pioneers were asked to travel down to the San Juan River area to build a community and live. This was a dangerous area because there were a few different American Indian tribes in the area who had previously had bad experiences with different travelers and cowboys who came through. This was a chance for these Mormon pioneers to show them that they were friendly and were not going to kill, cheat, or steal.
Reading about the lives of these people gives you so much respect for them! It appears that many didn’t want to be there, but they were asked to and they followed their leaders and God’s commands. They had to deal with extremely dry weather, flooding, Indian attacks, and cowboys. They were far away from any large towns. They were to act as buffers, shock absorbers, and lightening rods just to give you an idea of what life was like there.
Still to this day there aren’t many people in this area of Utah, but they must have accomplished what they were asked to do.
The love story between Mitch and Edie is sweet and realistic. I love that it isn’t overdone and steadily grows throughout the book. And of course there is a twist in it. 🙂 Lund is great at helping you feel what these people must have felt. He pulls you into the story and it’s easy to imagine being there. The book is a little bit of a slower pace, but life was slower then too. So it fits. Only the Brave is rich with historical details that will leave you amazed that these things really happened!
You can find Only the Brave at Deseret Book!