Aiming for Love - Review

Aiming for Love (Brides of Hope Mountain, # 1)

By: Mary Connealy

Publication: October 1st 2019 by Bethany House Publishers

320 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction, Christian Fiction

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Josephine Nordegren is one of three sisters who grew up nearly wild in southwestern Colorado. She has the archery skills of Robin Hood and the curiosity of the Little Mermaid, fascinated by but locked away from the forbidden outside world--a world she's been raised to believe killed her parents. When David Warden, a rancher, brings in a herd much too close to the girls' secret home, her older sister especially is frightened, but Jo is too interested to stay away.

David's parents follow soon on his heels, escaping bandits at their ranch. David's father is wounded and needs shelter. Josephine and her sisters have the only cabin on the mountain. Do they risk stepping into the world to help those in need? Or do they remain separated but safe in the peaks of Hope Mountain?

You guys, this book was so weird. I mean the description says it all, but I guess I just didn't really know what to expect. Aiming for Love was a quick read for me, but for many parts of it, I just kept shaking my head.

Jo and her sisters have lived on Hope Mountain all their lives. Their parents left many years ago and never returned, and their grandparents died one after the other. Now it's just the three of them. But they've lived by the rules their grandmother set about never leaving the mountain. When their grandfather was still alive, he would occasionally go into town for supplies, but none of the three girls ever have. This has created a real naivete about the outside world. And personally, I kept getting cult-like vibes from them. Ilsa is a female George of the Jungle with weaving vines and hanging them in the trees to swing from. Ilsa is the medicine woman of the three girls. Jo is silent as a deer and moves with the grace of one too. She's the hunter. And then there's Ursala, the gardener, the mother figure for the other two girls, and completely paralyzed with fear of the outside world.

The Warden family makes up the other major characters. There's Ma, which I found really weird for her to ask Jo and Ilsa to call her that. There's Quill, or Pa, who was shot and the real reason for the Wardens to interact with the Nordegrens. David is the leading male who moved up the mountain looking for land to settle his cattle ranch on and branch off from his parents. Mitch is the older brother who left for the war years ago and settled in New York. He's back at the ranch now and there will be much more to explore with him.

Jo and David were easy to root for. And they were the driving force for me to keep reading, especially when things got weird. I am interested in Mitch and Ilsa, but I'm a little unsure about Wax and Ursala.

I had a lot of thoughts while reading Aiming for Love. I read it quickly. I did enjoy Jo and David's relationship. I liked Ma. I'm intrigued by Ilsa and Mitch. But so many pieces were too weird for me, and my immediate thought upon finishing Aiming for Love was that I might not attempt to read the upcoming books in the series. Aiming for Love was unique for sure and gets 3 Stars. Have you read Aiming for Love? What did you think? Let me know!