Book Review ~ A Mending at the Edge

"A Mending at the Edge" by Jane Kirkpatrick

Book Three in the Change & Cherish series, this novel carries on the story of Emma Giesy. Emma is now living with the colony again after leaving an abusive situation with her new husband back at Willapa. Book 3 sees Emma still looking for her place in this world, trying to do the best for her children, while still hanging onto a semblance of independance from the leader of the colony. Emma has a great heart to reach out to women in need and after finally talking Dr. Keil, the leader of the colony into a home being built for her with two front door, so that families can be in the same house but still have privacy, she finally starts to realize her dream of helping women. Along with the home however, come new trials. As she struggles to maintain her faith and her dreams in the midst of the trials Emma works toward achieving her legacy of the Diamond Rule, "Doing things to make another's life better than her own".

I really enjoyed this story of independant Emma Giesy. It was interesting to me how the first woman to come west to Oregon fared through the hardships of the day. The third book in the series was an encouragement to me as Emma finally started to reach out to women of her community and outside of her community as well, sometimes much to the astonishment and disapproval of the leader and other women of her community. Her courage in doing this must have been great as no one, not even the men at that time, usually questioned the leader. Due to her heart and courage even in the midst of some hard trials, she was able to minister to women of her time.

Jane Kirkpatrick also has a chapter at the end in the acknowledgements that are worth reading. Don't skip it as she tells us details of the fact and fiction separation in the book. It's an interesting ending to the story to learn the actual historical facts about some of the characters in the books.