Marta’s Legacy: Her Mother’s Hope & Her Daughter’s Dream by Francine Rivers

I discovered books by Francine Rivers during a time in my life when I was pretty down. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I clung to her books to give me some hope.

This is a two-part series. The first is called Her Mother's Hope, the second is Her Daughter’s Dream. It’s a saga, the story of four generations of mother-daughter relationships. The first book starts in 1901 in Switzerland, and the second book ends in 2010 with the family living in northern California.

I flew through these books (each about 500 pages) in a week. I liked the whole mother-daughter theme. Also, it’s interesting how secrets and wounding comments are sometimes passed down to the next generation and how it affects relationships.

These books fall under the category “Christian fiction,” and I remember being embarrassed to tell my sister that I was reading “Christian fiction” (back when I was down in the dumps). However, it’s not in-your-face Christianity, it’s more that each of the characters have their own struggles with faith. It’s a subtle part of the book.