The story unfolds in a series of alternating first-person accounts, from both Julia and Samuel, as they struggle with their relationship while taking care of 10-year-old Robert and 5-year-old Sarah. Occasionally the first person shifts to Emma. Most of the story centers around the farm life and small town characters, and the secondary characters represent well the many types of people we would expect to see there. We meet the poor "white trash" neighbors; the nice woman who runs the boarding house in town; helpful middle-class families; and the mean-spirited, gossipy spinster determined to oust the outsiders who must surely be taking advantage of old Emma.

The story’s weaknesses are in the background story, of how the characters come to be in such a plight to begin with. It is said that Samuel lost not only his job, but also all of his wife’s savings in the stock market – invested in his employer’s stock. Undoubtedly the author had in mind the recent stock market woes, during which such things could and did happen. Yet the historical reality is that in the 1920s very few people – only the wealthy, with their personal stockbrokers – invested in the stock market. The common man did not buy stocks, even in the rare event that his employer’s company was a publicly traded stock. Julia’s Hope should have simply said that the husband lost his job – period.

The very premise of a homeless family hitchhiking several hundred miles across the country seems highly unusual, to say the least. The early 1930s was a time characterized by many homeless -- men -- who traveled by trains: an easier way to travel in the days before anything like a highway system had emerged, and relatively few vehicles traveled those roads between towns (so many still traveled by train). That time also featured adults with large families -- typically 9 to 12 children. So it seems quite unlikely that neither Julia nor Samuel had any closer family to help them out. A more likely scenario would have involved the husband traveling -- by train -- to look for work, while the wife and children lived with family. Though Julia's Hope is well written and wonderfully touching, especially later on, the basic story just doesn't fit as the sort of thing that actually might have happened.

Further, the numbers simply do not add up for 84-year-old Emma (born in 1847), married at age 14, to have lost a young-adult son during World War I. A woman her age would have easily had a grandson going off to war. Even had her son came relatively late in life, he would still have grown up long before automobiles arrived, and married and started a family before going off to the war – at age 35 or 40! To make the math problem even worse, though, we are specifically told that Warren came early in the marriage, followed by three miscarriages and then no more children.

Beyond these back-story difficulties, though, Julia’s Hope is a touching, tender-hearted family story about rural life in America, a nostalgic look at life during this harsher time when neighbors helped each other out. Above all else, being nice – even to those harder to be nice to – wins the day in this story. Julia’s Hope shows God’s abundant provisions and beauty, even to the simple beauties of gardening and wildflowers, and the author shows her knowledge of basic farm work.

The story ends abruptly, but on a promising outlook, with a sequel to look forward to. Emma’s Gift continues the Wortham-Graham saga over the next several months. This author's first novel is a nice, endearing one, though I would encourage her to do more background research before attempting further historical novels. Clearly, though, the author's style is well-suited to family stories in a more contemporary setting.

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