Customer Reviews

Twilight's Serenade (Song of Alaska)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Twilight's Serenade is the final book of the Song of Alaska series by Tracie Peterson. It was my favorite of the three books in this series.

Britta Lindquist left Alaska 6 years ago to try to forget about the love of her life, Yuri. When she returns, she finds Yuri missing and his wife about to give birth to another child. However, tragedy strikes and Britta finds herself the caretaker of Yuri's children (Laura and Darya). Meanwhile, Yuri turns his life around and returns home to find things have changed. Britta must come face-to-face with him and a hard decision she must make. Brenton Maltese, her violin teacher has offered her the coveted position of first-chair violinist for his new orchestra in England. Between Yuri's return and the orchestra, Britta must make a decision on what she wants most in her life...

This book was my favorite out of the three. Yuri's change of heart seemed rather quick however since it happened near the beginning of the book. That is understandable though since it was needed to drive the plot. I liked the addition of Marston Gray near the end of the story. It sort of tied all 3 books together since it seemed the Gray family were the "villians" of this series. Again, descriptions of scenery and life in Alaska were detailed. I really enjoyed this series...I wish it could continue on and dwelve into the lives of Laura and the other grandchildren of Lydia. Looking forward to Tracie Peterson's next series though.

Tracie Peterson is a master of historical fiction and this book is a great addition to her library of writing. I read the first book in this series and somehow missed the second book, I was pleased to see that the third book isn't reliant on the previous books but can stand on its on feet if necessary. Much time has passed since the first book, the infant in book one is now a dad with children of his own. Now his younger sister is the main character in this book and she is returning home after being gone on tour with her violin for years. She is trying to figure out what she wants for her future when her future lands in her lap. Can she really reconcile her past with her present and her future. Can it really involve Yuri and his girls or when she fell in love with him at age 7 was it just a crush.

I really liked the conclusion to this series and I thank Tracie Peterson for renewing my faith in historical romance. She is a true master.

This book was my favorite out of the three. Tracie Peterson has such a knack for entwining her historical fiction stories into story you feel you have lived through. She draws you in and you fall in love with her characters, and have true empathy for them.

Britta Lindquist left Alaska in hopes of forgeting her true love Yuri. Britta returns after traveling to play violin and comes home to tragedy. Yuri's wife gives birth and dies in the process. Britta dives in and accepts the responsibility of the children while Yuri is found. Yuri makes his apprearance a changed man and causes Britta to reevaluate her feelings towards him. Britta is faced with many decisions and your feel her anguish as she is forced to deal with so much. I really enjoyed this book as well as the others in the series if not a bit better. Also I felt by bringing Marston Gray into the story it really tied all three books together. I am looking forward to Tracie's next series!

Thank you tracie for allowing me to go on many wonderful journeys with your books. im a christian and i loved how the Lord shined though your charcters. please keep writing.

As usual, Tracie Peterson doesn't disappoint in this historical christian fiction novel. I own all of her books, and could reread them every year. They characters and stories are always heartwrenching and wonderful. I love that it serves as a great fictional read, but also gives me little reminders of God's love, grace, and faithfulness throughout the book.

I received a review copy of Twilight's Serenade from Bethany House, and am under no requirement to write a positive review, just an honest one.

Twilight's Serenade follow the story of Lydia Lindquist's daughter, Britta Lindquist.

Britta took up violin and after having her heart broken by Yuri Belikov left Sitka to try to get over him, forget about him and move on.

6 years later, Britta returns to Sitka and must decide if she is going to take an offer to join an amazing orchestra in England, but she knew first she had to come back to see Yuri first in order to decide if she should take the offer. Furthermore, Britta must decide about another offer she has received, an offer of marriage from the conductor of the orchestra, Brenton, who is in love with her and who she asked to give her time to go back to Sitka before she made the decision if she would marry him or not...

When Britta returns to Sitka her life immediately becomes more complicated, not only is she not over Yuri but it turns out he had gotten married (by force more than out of love) to a rather vile woman who dies giving childbirth while Britta is there. Yuri is gone, no one knows where he is, and Britta finds herself drawn to caring for Yuri's two children.

When Yuri returns to Sitka suddenly, Britta must break the news of his dead wife, and decide how to proceed with his children that she has come to love deeply over the months she has cared from him. Britta wants more than anything to marry Yuri and become a family, but Yuri is a destroyed man, whose life was ruined from his horrible alcohol abuse, and who feels unworthy to experience happiness. Furthermore, he believes he does not deserve Britta, nor should he hold her back from the chance to be first chair violin in Brenton's orchestra...

Will Yuri come to love Britta? Or will she have her heart broken yet again if he decides to give his children up for adoption, taking away from her the deepest connection she has had to Yuri in years...

Twilight's Serenade is another beautiful installment in the series. At first I found it odd to jump forward so far in time in each book in the series but at the same time it is a great chance to see how the family has grown and changed during the periods in between each book. Britta is a more minor character in the prior book, and here she becomes the focus of the book as she strains to decide if she should follow her heart and risk it on Yuri, a troubled man with many problems, or marry Brenton who loves her but she knows she will never love in quite the same deep way.

Tracie Peterson is truly a master at weaving historical fiction stories into a beautiful tale. She makes it so easy to love her characters and care about them and their future. The book was another amazing example of her beautiful writing and for me, was a guarantee that I will be buying and reading other books that she has written.

For anyone who loves Christian fiction, Tracie Peterson does a great job with her inspirational stories. And unlike many Christian fiction writers she doesn't write all fluff, she writes about characters who face serious life problems, such as alcoholism. It is definitely not all sunshine and rainbows like many Christian authors choose to write. It makes it so much more real, and especially inspiring to see how her characters try to work through their problems and find the Lord, including the very real struggle to not lose faith in God when hardships are abundant.

My only criticism is that this book comes off so much more "preachy" than her other books and it really began to detract from the book. The conversations between the characters felt forced to make a point about religion, rather than realistic about how people would discuss such things. Her first book did, I think, the best job making a point about a character finding her faith in God again, but felt so real; the conversations about God the characters shared seemed real, not forced and not preachy for the readers. In this book, it was the opposite, the conversations felt so staged and unnatural.

Overall though, I loved the story, and was glad to read another chapter in the lives of the Lindquist family.

One thing I would have loved to see is Britta take up her violin again as a sign of healing. I felt that that would have really added to the story and showed her recovering from her heartbreak and the tough choices she makes throughout the book, including an incredible loss she experiences that almost destroys her.
I highly recommend this series to anyone who loves historical fiction, inspirational fiction and/or Christian fiction!

Four out of five stars (only because the dialogue came across so unnatural)

Twilight's Serenade by Tracie Peterson is the third book in the Songs of Alaska series. Britta Lindquist has returned home to Sitka, Alaska, after spending six years on tour playing her violin around the world. She has a difficult choice to make: marry Brenton Maltese and accept his invitation to be first chair in a new orchestra in London, or stay home with her large family and try to get over her life-long love for Yuri Belikov. When she arrives home, she quickly finds herself helping Yuri's wife give birth to their second child, but tragedy strikes, and Yuri and Britta find their lives entwined in ways that neither of them ever expected. For the most part, Peterson does a terrific job getting first time readers up to speed on the history, although Lydia's coldness toward Marston was a bit hard to swallow without knowing more about their backstory. Britta is a terrific heroine, fierce in her love, devoted to her family, and with an enormous amount of heart. Peterson throws in a devastating twist that will break readers' hearts. It's a satisfying conclusion to a epic story about the Lindquist family that ends with everyone happily ever after.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series. The books contained some good spiritual lessons and it was difficult to put them down.

Before I begin this review, I would like to note that I only just now realized that I have not read the second book this series. I have no idea how I did this, as I normally try to read all books in a series before reviewing the newest addition. As such, this makes a lot of sense when I look back on this story as to why I was totally confused as to who characters were and why in the world so much had time had passed since the first book. Therefore I will soon need to go back and read the second book in this series to read about what I have missed.

Even with that out of the way, I unfortunately did not really enjoy reading this book. This is sad because normally I really enjoy reading Tracie Peterson's novels. I have read about 95% of all her books, and believe me she's written A LOT of books. However, this one just did not really fit with me. For starters, the synopsis that is on the back of the book is NOTHING about what this story is about. I'm not spoiling anything by saying this but that synopsis pretty much ties itself up in the first quarter of the book. I'm not kidding. It's over and is never brought up again for the rest of the book. This I felt to be very misleading as I thought that was going to be main conflict of the book and it was over before it barely began! The storyline is also very predictable and I could see things happening long before they actually came true. The characters are rather cookie cutter and not a lot happens with them to make them grow and change.

I also felt this book to be extremely preachy. Now with Christian fiction I can expect there to be some talk about God and being saved to a point in the book. This book however, pretty much was just filled with it. I'm sorry but I would not want to give this book to someone who wasn't a Christian because I think they would either get confused by all the lingo or annoyed at being preached at constantly. It's one thing to see how having strong faith influences a character but it's quite a different matter for it to get thrown in your face on every page. Also there is a character that is a recovering alcoholic and gets over his alcoholism simply by praying. While this can be part of the recovery process, it is very unrealistic for it to be the only way, and also especially after just one time of going cold turkey.

Now there were things I did find interesting about the story. SIDS is brought up and even though they didn't know much about it during the time period, it is still interesting at how it is handled. Also I found it quite interesting that the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake is mentioned and talked about even though most of the story takes place in Alaska. I liked the historical aspect of that as it made the book more historical at that point instead of being just a historical romance.

However, it's not enough to save the book, and sadly I cannot recommend it. The first book in the series I did enjoy. I will have to go back and read the second book to catch up on what I missed. I'm hoping that future books by Peterson will find more favor with me.

This was a very good book, its just as good as the first two were, I wasn't disappointed. I love reading books about Alaska, I hope to go there someday. I would recommend this book to everyone who likes reading Christian Historical Fiction from a very inspired author.