Customer Reviews

When Tomorrow Comes (Canadian West #6)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book 6 in Canadian West features the life of Christine. She is recovering from a near tragic relationship with Boyd from book 5, and World War II looms bigger and bigger. Between jobs as the book opens, Christine attends the wedding of her big brother and meets another Mountie, Laray. Is it love? Unable to decided, Christine leaves and cares for her injured Aunt Mary. She discovers a worthwhile ministry at the local Hope Canteen, sharing Christ with young servicemen and women. An automobile accident proves pivotal for both the story line and Christine's life. Oke introduces a handsome young resident at the hospital whose family helped found the town. Christine is torn about her future which seems to revolve around her beloved North. Oke has a very surprising ending to this book, one I was not prepared for nor particularly liked. Hope this book is not the end of the series.

This book tells the story of Christine, a woman that has suffered a broken heart and is searching for God's will for her life. Christine has choices to make and she seeks God's will as she makes those choices. There was information in this book that Ms. Oke weaves into the story about finding God's will that I found helpful for my own life. I enjoyed the story and it had a surprise ending....very different than I was expecting.

I was very pleased to see the sequel to Beyond the Gathering Storm so that I could find out what might become of Christine. Overall I thought it was an okay book, but the ending just didn't seem right. Even though Oke wanted us to finish the book with the feeling that Christine really was in love with Eric, I don't think she was. The day before she was supposed to make her decision about whether she wanted to continue seeing Eric seriously or not, she had no idea, then after just reading a chapter in Exodus she realized that she truly loves him?? Come on, really. I felt through the whole book that she and Henry's fellow RCMP Laray were a perfect match, esp. since he was going back to the North where she always felt that she belonged. Despite what I felt was an unsatisfactory ending, I overall enjoyed the story. I'd take it or leave it.

I wanted to like this story, but it felt rushed and disjointed. She builds up a romantic story line and then skips over into another story entirely. I must admit I like the stories about settlers better than the more modern settings and situations. I suppose the wars aren't that modern but they're a less innocent time. I felt like she had cheated her readers by rushing this to press before taking the time to edit it properly. She had proved herself in the past and I'll buy her books again but it was really disapointing. A writer who can write Roses For Mama can do a lot better.

As an avid christian fiction reader, I eagerly await new books by my favorite authors. This book was well worth the wait. I don't know about anyone else, but I was disappointed when Janette Oke ended the Canadian West series a number of years ago. I was incredibly pleased to see her continue on last year, with "Beyond the Gathering Storm" and I have been anxiously awaiting this book. It is supurbly written and was satisfying in the end. There is just enough suspense to make it impossible to put down. It is a book that reminds the reader how important faith in God really is and that if you listen to Him, you will not choose the wrong path for you life. I am hoping that Oke decides to contine on with this series. I am looking forward to seeing these characters again. Happy reading!!

This book was merely ok for me. It starts right when Beyond the Gathering Storm lets off and continues the story of Christine. This time, Christine is the main character with no switching of point of view to her brother Henry. Her parents, Elizabeth and Wynn, feature slightly but are again, not the main characters.

We find Christine living with her parents after the breakup of her relationship in the South where she subsequently loses her job as well. She is just about to look for another job when she gets the good news that her brother and his beloved Amber will be getting married at Christmas and would love if she would come early to help with things. This she agrees to readily.

She and her mother first stop at Calgary to visit family and obtain some supplies, like fabric for a new suit for her position as bride's maid. While her mother stays in Calgary, she continues on to her brother's place.

After the wedding, it is Christine's job to look after Danny, Amber's son. It is during this time that a certain young Mountie that we know from Beyond the Gathering Storm (one that was mauled by a bear actually) takes a special interest in her. While he is not pushy, Christine just isn't sure she is ready for a relationship yet. She leaves with him saying if she ever changes her mind, all she needs to do is send him a note.

She stops briefly back home before going back to Edmonton to pursue a job. Here she finds one and is just hired when she gets the bad news that her Aunt in Calgary has fallen and hurt her back and needs a nursemaid. Knowing that it would be probably for the best, she goes to take care of her Aunt, abandoning the job she just had.

The care of her Aunt goes well and soon she finds herself in a job in Calgary, thanks to her Uncle who was able to suggest it to her. With such happiness going on, they decide all family should come for Easter. When all but her brother Henry is there, they get bad news that he and his family have been in an accident. While they wait at the hospital visiting and looking after Henry and his family, she meets a young doctor who later turns out to have romantic pursuits.

In addition to the doctor, a young priest also has been pursuing her and knows her from the volunteer work that she is doing for soldiers. However will she decide where her heart leads?

There wasn't as much Christian emphasis in this book as there were in the rest of Oke's in my opinion. The only time she really brought it in was towards the end when Christine was seeking guidance towards making a decision. The way she did it, to me, was really strange. It involved Christine conversing with different quotes from the bible and while I realize people do this, it just seemed awkward to me. I think it was perhaps the way Oke wrote it rather than the situation actually being awkward.

Another disappointment in this book for me, and the reason I only rated it three stars, was because I did not agree with the ending at all. While there were three guys to pick and choose from, she didn't choose the one I would have chosen for her. Oke had all possible logic leading to a certain one and then out of nowhere switches it up. It made it less of an enjoyable read for me.

At least in this book, compared to the last, the characters were more believable. They weren't always perfect and were more fallible. This made it easier for me to connect with them.

As always, Oke's writing is inoffensive and while she deals with some tough things, she doesn't go too far with them or get too descriptive in gory details.

Overall, while I would have liked to see a better ending to the Canadian West series this wasn't terrible. It just isn't the end I would have chosen for it.

When Tomorrow Comes
Copyright 2001
256 pages

Being a Janette Oke and looking forward to reading her books, I was disappointed that the book did not end in the way I had expected. I was pleased to see that I wasn't the only one who holds this opinion. I thought that it would have been a much better ending had it been Christine and Laray, especially with him going to the North as well rather than Eric. I hope Ms Oke writes another one in the series where Christine changes her mind for laray, i really liked him!

This is a great sequel to "Beyond the Gathering Storm." I notice that another reviewer complained that Christine couldn't possibly decide she was in love with Eric at the end of the book just by reading the Bible. Why not? Plenty of real-life people have made decisions that way! There have also been cases of people in love with someone for years before they knew it, I'm glad the story wasn't like that. Perhaps the reviewer has never had such an experience, but that doesn't mean they know everything! It's great to have stories where people read the Bible and act on what they've learned, and Janette Oke is one of my favorite Christian writers! My only complaint is that sometimes it took too long to get through a part of the story that seemed unimportant to me.

I was excited to see that Janette Oke had written two more books for her Canadian West series (my favorite of all her books)about the Delaney's kids. Either the quality of her writing has diminished or my literary taste has matured; either way, these two books were not that great. The sixth one was especially aggravating! The character development was poor; the plot was choppy. It was as if the author was trying to minimize words, frequently giving summaries of what had just occurred, rather than allowing you to enjoy it yourself. Without spoiling, the romance aspect of this book completely failed, and was completely unbelievable. Stick with the original four and skip the latter two.

I've been a huge fan of Janette oke since I was a young teen, and have continued to enjoy her books for the past decade. I must say though, that this was the first time ive ever been dissapointed by her. I read the first book in this series (When calls the Heart) when i was 14 or so and it was my favorite book for years. The next 5 in the series were all entertaining and just the right amount of romantic while providing a beautiful message of God's love and guidance. This book was just a mess. I found Christine's character to be painfully flat and uninteresting. Her reactions to the men who were interested in her were almost irritatingly self-centered. I know the end of the book where she spends a week "searching for God's guidance" was supposed to make up for it all, but I think it fell a little short. The way the book starts by setting up the romance between Christine and Laray and then just dropping it suddenly to start another romance with Eric makes it all feel unhinged. I guess it might have worked if the relationship had been at least romantic, but Christine is unsure of her feelings the whole time so it's really hard to understand where it's going. Anyway, I guess it's hard to write an amazing story EVERY single time...so 5 good books out of 6 ain't bad..