Daughters of the Northern Shore by Joanne Bischof

From the publisher:

Aven Norgaard understands courage. Orphaned within an Irish workhouse, then widowed at just nineteen, she voyaged to America where she was wooed and wed by Thor Norgaard, a Deaf man in rural Appalachia. That the Lord saw her along the winding journey and that Aven now carries Thor’s child are blessings beyond measure. Yet while Thor holds her heart, it is his younger brother and rival who haunts her memories. Haakon—whose selfish choices shattered her trust in him.

Having fled the Norgaard orchard after trying to take Aven as his own, Haakon sails on the North Atlantic ice trade, where his soul is plagued with regrets that distance cannot heal. Not even the beautiful Norwegian woman he’s pursued can ease the torment. When the winds bear him home after four years away, Haakon finds the family on the brink of tragedy. A decades-old feud with the neighboring farm has wrenched them into the fiercest confrontation on Blackbird Mountain since the Civil War. Haakon’s cunning and strength hold the power to seal many fates, including Thor’s—which is already imperiled due to a grave illness brought to him at the first prick of warfare.

Now Haakon faces the hardest choice of his life. One that shapes a battlefield where pride must be broken enough to be restored, and where a prodigal son may finally know the healing peace of surrender and the boundless gift of forgiveness. And when it comes to the woman he left behind in Norway, he just might discover that while his heart belongs to a daughter of the north, she’s been awaiting him on shores more distant than the land he’s fighting for.

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This is the sequel to Sons of Blackbird Mountain but there is enough backstory in this book that you don't have to read the first book to understand the story line.  Bischof does an outstanding job of describing the setting of the various stages of this story.  I love reading her writing. It is exquisite to read. You feel as if you are in the story partaking of the emotional impact as each event occurs.  

I enjoyed the family scenes and the bonding of the brothers and sisters-in-laws.  The problem I have with this book is that I feel that Haakon is not realistic.  In the first book he is an  unhinged violent man.  In this book everyone forgives him and he becomes a meek and mild man everyone looks up to.  There is a small "conversion" like experience but not in enough depth to make this reader "believe" in the change.  The theme of the book seems to be forgiveness and restoration of relationships.  That is a beautiful goal in any family.  The problem I have is there is a difference between forgiveness and being able to have a relationship again with the person who has harmed you.  In this case Haakon committed an act of violence against his soon to be sister-in-law.  I think the story would have been more authentic if he had just loved her but not been driven to such drastic actions to create a violent scene between Haakon, Aven and Thor.  

This book  is still well written and I would read other books by Joanne Bischof in a minute.

I received this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.