Wandering Hearts by Donna J. Grisanti

This book takes place in American at the end of the depression and through WWII.

Raine Foster lives with her Grandmother and one day two children arrive. They are cousins to Raine and their parents had died and the Grandma agreed to watch over them. The Grandmother has been ill and soon dies...leaving rain with the two young children. To make matters worse there is a man in town who wants to make Raine his wife, only he is mean and she knows she would probably end up dead and the children sent away. She can't risk loosing the only family she has left. They fake their deaths and begin a journey that will change their lives. The meet Touhy. He helps them jump onto a train so they can travel far away from their town fast. He sticks with them for a couple days because he knows a women with two kids and no man....would not be safe in the hobo camps. They soon make it to riverview and meet the O'Martins. The O'Martins are a black family that work for a rich white family. The O'Martins help Raine, Touhy, and the children to get a job at the orchard farm, owned by China Joe. Right now Raine, Touhy, and the children tell everyone they are all cousins, even though Touhy isn't a cousin. Touhy planned to leave after a couple months but China Joe says if Touhy leaves, the others must leave as well because they can't do all the work. So Touhy stays. The Fosters soon become good friends with the O'Martins and Mayleen, the lady they look after. Soon Pearl Harbor is bombed and Touhy leaves to join the war. Rain and China Joe marry, to keep China Joe safe since people want him gone since they think he is from japan. Rain knows that China Joe and Mayleen are in love but can't marry because her brother, her only living relative, won't allow it. Mayleen also has a weak heart and her health just keeps getting worse. Raine helps China Joe and Mayleen get together as often as possible. Mayleen's brother makes things worse and worse. There are other events that will happen to the Fosters as well...but don't really want to go in to it because I don't want to spoil the book.

This story was wonderful. I didn't even mention all of the characters in the story that I loved. You have both pastors in the town, the black pastor and the white pastor. They become friends even though the town isn't too sure of it yet...remember this was a long time ago. The pastors help out Raine and her family and the O'Martin's and Mayleen as much as they can. There is also the Dr. who lost his wife and son and has become the town drunk, although he tries to hide it. All these people come together and try to help him stop drinking. In fact, all these people come together to help each other out whenever something bad happens.

This was a very large book for me and I read it in 1 week - I was very surprised by that because normally large books take me a long time. This book kept my attention and I wanted to know what was going to happen to Raine and the everyone else. Oh..and in the back it says this is the authors first published book..wow! I think she did a great job.

new author/fiction/chunky book/644 pages