A most unsuitable match by Stephanie Grace Whitson

     Review by:  Regina

Title:  A most unsuitable match

Author:  Stephanie Grace Whitson

Collection:  Adult Fiction

It’s 1869 and eighteen-year-old Fannie Rousseau has just lost her mother – and her father, just three years earlier. Fannie’s small, privileged world has come crashing down on her until she discovers that she has an aunt, possibly living out west, that she has never met. Bravely hopping a steamboat with her beloved Hannah, up the Missouri River, Fannie sets off in hopes of meeting her mother’s twin sister, Edie. Along the way a quiet, young man named Samuel Beck and his friend Lamar extend their help, especially after Hannah dies in the steamboat accident and they continue the journey out west. Fannie finds that Sam has a secret of his own, for he has been trying to find his younger sister who ran away from their abusive father. The trip, rough arrangements, and unusual, hard events force Fannie to grow up and strengthen her faith. Will the end result and secrets unwrapped be worth the trip and trouble? As Fannie says, “I guess it’s time I grew into the life I’ve been handed.”

I really enjoy works of historical fiction and love learning about our country, especially when America was in its infancy – wrapped around a good plot of fiction makes for good reading.

Did you know: Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river takes drainage from a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of more than half a million square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.