With You Always: A Marriage of Convenience New York City Heir Historical Romance (Orphan Train)

With You Always (2017) by Jody Hedlund is the first novel in her Orphan Train series. This novel comes in all forms including eBook, and is 359 pages in length. With a full-time job and a precocious five-year old at home, With You Always took me three days to read. I purchased an eBook copy of this novel on June 23, 2017 from Amazon to review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I give this novel 5+++ STARS. With You Always is a Christian Historical Romance. With You Always is the 9th novel I have read by Jody Hedlund. It will definitely not be the last! Jody Hedlund is a phenomenal writer and storyteller. I was captivated by Elise and Thornton’s story from chapter one, and struggled hard to put this book down. With You Always is incredibly fast-paced and thoroughly engaging. It has everything a reader looks for in great historical fiction: characters dealing with really difficult choices, witty banter, gritty historical accuracy, amazing romance that made my heart SO happy, a few villains who made my blood boil, some really excellent secondary characters, and a great message. I love when I pick up a historical novel and actually walk away from it having learned something. Before this novel, I had never heard of The Children’s Aid Society, Charles Loring Brace, or the Orphan Trains. What a shocking, awful time in our history! From 1854-1929, children were removed from tenements and the streets of New York, and other slum areas, and shipped off to homes out “West” in an attempt to give them a better life. Some of these children were orphans who had no adults in their lives. Some of these children were given up by their parents who could no longer afford to feed and care for them, most of the time through no fault of their own. There are a few moments in With You Always where characters discuss the potential of having to give up their children, or do give up children, to The Children’s Aid Society. These moments really made my heart hurt. The pain the characters feel as they attempt to make the decision to leave their families behind to find work, or to give up children, is so real and palpable. There were several moments I had to work to keep the tears at bay. And, I made my daughter give me lots of extra cuddles. I can’t imagine having to make the decision to leave my family, or to give my daughter away. I am so grateful to God for my family’s protection from these truly awful and painful decisions. Elise is 18, orphaned, and trying to keep her siblings safe and alive. She does make the decision to leave her siblings in the care of someone she trusts so she can move to where employment is. Hedlund does an excellent job of portraying Elise’s sense of guilt and failure at having to leave her siblings in order to find work elsewhere. Elise is an extremely hard worker, so she puts herself into the tasks given to her at her new job, but the niggling sense of guilt that she couldn’t be superwoman and work and care for her family all at the same time overwhelms her. Elise’s feelings are so true to life. I’m in a completely different situation and time period, but I often feel like a failure as a woman because I can’t do it all. Whether you are woman from 1410, 1854, or today, the world tells us we should be able to do it all. When we can’t — because it’s physically impossible! — we take it really hard. I appreciate Elise so much because I totally relate to how she feels in this book. Thornton is wealthy beyond anything Elise, or I, can imagine. He is handsome, kind to a point, and totally “upper-class” brained. At first, I didn’t like Thornton too much. He is “silver-spoon” arrogant, and he treats humans below him in social stature as cheap labor. But, all this changes when he meets Elise. The BEST part of Thornton’s character is that he is willing to change. Watching his transformation over the course of the story is one of the best parts of this book. Elise holds no punches. She is witty and is not afraid to speak truth to Thornton even at the expense of her job. As he gets to know Elise better, she opens his eyes to the men and women who are in his employ. Instead of a cheap labor force, he begins to see just how hard they work for him and he realizes that he needs to become not just a better boss, but a better man. Of all the fictional relationships that I have read in my time, Elise and Thornton may be my most favorite fictional couple. They are sweet towards each other, which made my romance-lovin’ heart happy, but what I really love about them is that they make each other better humans. Isn’t that really the goal every couple should strive for? There is SO much more to discuss with this book — I barely scraped the surface in this review! There is Thornton’s desperate need to please his father, and his eventual realization that the only father he needs to worry about is his Heavenly Father. There is Elise’s trust issues, and her ultimate awareness that running to God is the best option because running from God just makes life, which is already hard, that much harder. And, I didn’t even get to talk about the secondary characters. They are so multifaceted and wonderful. With You Always is jammed-packed with excellent things to discuss!!! With You Always is an AMAZING story. I am so sad that my time with Elise and Thornton is over. I am really going to miss them! If you are looking for an excellently researched, beautifully written historical fiction to devour, then I HIGHLY recommend With You Always. You will not be sad you picked this book to read.

With You Always was an awesome read. From the first page to the end, I could barely put the book down. The storyline was believable as were the characters. It brought me back to the middle of the 1800's in the slums of New York. The young sister and two small children they were caring for because their parents were dead and there was no family to care for them. Elise is the main character and she is trying to keep here little family together. She finds work in a sewing room were other young women were also trying to make enough to feed their families and a roof over their heads. Thornton Quincy is from a very wealthy family and runs into Elsie as she is trying to help a blind man sitting on the sidewalk with his tin can trying to get enough money so he could eat. This is a story about a rich young man who learns how the others live who are living hand to mouth working from sun rise to sunset for barely enough to live on, and are treated like they don't exist. How he learns and respects these lower class citizens and its also a beautiful love story. I highly recommend this book. This is my first book written by Jody Hedlund, but not my last!

This was an enjoyable read featuring a strong heroine set during the financial crisis of 1850s New York. As the eldest of three orphaned sisters, Elise struggles to do her best and retain both her morality and her dignity in the face of severe testing. Elise is likeable and I related to her. She had some fire and humor to her but I wouldn’t call her sassy. I thought that both her storyline and the Thornton challenge were presented well (It makes a lot of sense to consider the train business in a series about orphan trains!). I really appreciated how well everything wrapped up! It was a good enough read that I sat down and read through the whole series in about a week or so. I’d expected this book to stay my favorite out of the three, but it actually took second place because another one was just that good. 🙂

I really enjoyed this first book in the Orphan Train series. I'd recommend reading the free prequel, An Awakened Heart, because it gives you the fuller backstory of Elise and her sisters and their dire situation. This book highlighted an interesting aspect of the orphan train movement, focusing on the transport of poor working women from NYC to find jobs in rural Illinois. Elise and Thornton were a good match and I enjoyed their banter, although the romantic tension between them is a little high (which I think this author is known for). They both had to learn to change their misconceptions about each other's social classes. Spiritually, Elise had to learn that God is always there, even through the bad times. Elise's sister, Marianne, has a subplot in this story which will lead to the second book in this series. I listened to this as an audiobook and finished it off in an ebook because I wanted to keep reading faster to see what happened! The audiobook narrator was good although spoke a little slowly in my opinion. Overall, a great first book in the series!

The first half of the book takes place in New York, 1857. Elise and her siblings are orphan German immigrants. Living at the Seventh Street Mission, life is difficult. She is promised work in Illnois and works to reunite her family. There is a distinct difference in the class of workers and the wealthy entrepreneur Thornton Quincy. He learns to humble himself to gain trust and friendship with her strength he is able to become a better man for himself and his dying father.

Excellent! Hard to put down. Heart wrenching situation of desperation to keep families together through tough times. A romance between two who come from vastly different backgrounds. Eyes opened to the needs of others.

This book was so touching and so much sorrow added into the lives of the immigrants who came thru Ellis island as my grandparents. The story told the very hard and desperate situations mostly women and how they learned lessons from the Lord's loving them and going through it all with them. I hated for it to end, there is a second in the series but I will have to wait for it to be on sale. I recommend the author and this wholesome book

A wonderful read about the history of the orphan trains, and the strong and determined women who would do anything for their families.An excellent example of how God works in the many trials in all of our lived.

This book captured me by its setting and situation the main characters were in. It was historically interesting and the theme was thought provoking. An arresting insight of moment in time.

I loved this story so much, the rapport between Elise and Thorton was just the best. I was amazed at the state of things in 1850s New York, but it brought them together and made the story so interesting. The relationship between Thorton and his twin is a case of brother vs brother and just adds to the story. Elise taking over the cooking in the new town he is building was a great thing, it made me hungry reading about she was cooking/baking. I just loved all aspects of this book, it just shows you how strong men and woman were back then to start a town from scratch and work so hard to make it all work. I look forward to reading the next two books that have Elise's sisters and how they make there way. I have found a new favorite author in Judy Hedlund.

I really enjoyed this story of a time and circumstances that I’m not familiar. It’s a great reminder that God wants us to remember that He is always with us.

Jody Hedlund is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. I found it difficult put this book down. Her characters and plot are wonderful, full of twists.

it’s just ... it’s just .... i just loved elise and thornton!! they’re banter is so cute and they’re individual growth and the way they challenge each other was perfect. the setting was intriguing, and i can’t wait to spend more time with the characters we’ve met, and the world is rich with history. such a well done story — the way the author strings us along until the very. last. minute. every. single. time. is why i keep coming back for more of her books. they might not be unpredictable in every way, and parts of it may seem familiar, but her thoroughly-researched world and her likeable characters and the way she keeps the story’s momentum until the last page... that’s what makes it so good!