This Road We Traveled

Starred review from July 25, 2016
Kirkpatrick (The Memory Weaver) takes readers back to the 1840s and the westward expansion of the United States. Tabby Brown, the matriarch of the Brown-Pringle clan, is excited when her son Orus returns with news that the family will be making the trip out west to Oregon. This announcement is immediately followed by the pronouncement that the journey will be too much for the aging and infirm Tabby. Defiantly, Tabby makes arrangements and attaches her own wagon to the family caravan. She is provided multiple opportunities to stay behind, especially as she finds that not all of her family is leaving, but she always chooses to continue on. Kirkpatrick does a fine job developing the many family members as they make their way to the Pacific, and the deliberate, halting pace of the story accurately recapitulates the same attributes of the arduous trek across the western frontier. Tabby is a formidable, intrepid force, certain that God still has a purpose for her despite her age and disability. This is more than one woman’s story of courage and faith; it is the story of a family that journeys, grows, and heals together. Kirkpatrick’s vivid, rich prose will keep readers in awe and on the edges of their seats.

Starred review from September 15, 2016
Tabitha Moffat Brown, the family matriarch, is dead set on not being left behind as her controlling son and the extended family travels west from Missouri on the Oregon Trail to a new beginning in 1845. Three generations of Brown women make the treacherous journey: stubborn Tabitha; her fearful daughter, Pherne; and adventurous granddaughter, Virgilia. When the trail brings them to a crossroads, the once dissenting members must relinquish old hurts and band together for survival, trusting that God will provide even in the face of unimaginable trials. Based on the experiences of the real Tabitha Moffat Brown, known as the Mother of Oregon, this is a story about learning to let go and making room for the treasures God has in store. Kirkpatrick (The Memory Weaver, 2015) paces the novel in a way that makes readers feel they are marching alongside the Browns. Rather than sugarcoat the hardships of life on the trail, she tempers the glow of opportunity with the cost of its realization. Richly researched and remarkably detailed, Kirkpatrick's novel embodies a true pioneering spirit in its dramatization of gumption, poetry, and loss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)