Under the Same Sky
By
Grade : C+

With some books, you just know at the beginning that it's either going to be really good or a trainwreck. However, Under the Same Sky contained such a mixture of strength and weaknesses that it ended up being a very tough book to grade. With an unusual plot, an off-the-beaten path setting, and beautiful writing that fit the sweeping nature of the story, I had a feeling that it would stand out. However, the plotting meandered at times and the romance never really got going until the end.

This book reads primarily as a historical, but does have more than a touch of the paranormal about it. Set in the 1730s and 1740s, we first meet our heroine on a hardscrabble farm in colonial South Carolina. Maggie Johnson leads a fairly spartan life, growing up in poverty with a loving mother and sisters, but burdened with a harsh and hard-drinking father. However, even in childhood, Maggie has a connection to a world outside her own. She has a playmate who seems to come from another plane, and he is a wonderful companion. Unbeknownst to Maggie, the boy in her dreams and visions is a real child named Andrew MacDonnell, only a few years older than herself, and growing up in the Scottish Highlands.

It takes traumatic events to bring the grown Maggie and Andrew together. After Maggie's father dies in an accident, the isolated farmstead without a man becomes the target of raiders who carry off Maggie and her sisters. Following a harrowing series of events including gang rape and other violent treatment, Maggie finds herself living among the Cherokee. Across the ocean, Andrew gets caught up in the events of Culloden. Though he survives the battle, he has lost almost everyone and everything, so he ends up seeking passage to the Colonies to rebuild his life and to find the woman of his visions. Along the way, Maggie and Andrew continue to connect in dreamlike visions.

And that's one of the aspects of the book that caused me trouble. Maggie and Andrew go the vast majority of the book without meeting. While their friendship and connection through dreams and visions actually did feel somewhat believable at times, the visions are often somewhat indistinct and lack the vividness or emotional quality that would allow many readers to see them as a basis for a relationship. At one point, Maggie actually turns away a suitor on the strength of what she sees as her tie to Andrew. Had that tie felt more real, this could have been a powerful moment, but since the Andrew of the visions feels rather removed from Maggie's real world at this point in the story, the scene ended up feeling a little odd instead.

Though Maggie and Andrew's romance could have used more attention, and the two leads probably could have used more time together, the story still has some wonderful moments. The book alternates between portions of Maggie's life told in the first person and Andrew's life told in third person narrative. The author manages the transitions between voices well, and I really did feel as though I was traveling back and forth between their two worlds as I read. In addition, while at times the dates and the timeline of ages/events didn't seem to add up correctly, the portions of the story outside of the romantic relationship had a vivid quality to them that made Maggie and Andrew's adventures come alive. Though probably not the author's intent, I eventually found myself spending more time focused on each character's individual problems and stopped caring whether the leads were ever going to meet.

And that brings me to the difficulty of grading the book. On the positive side, the backstory is well told. Though the book includes quite a bit of violence and there is a rape scene, these did not seem gratuitous to me. The 18th century was a harsh place, particularly for women alone, and both Maggie and Alexander face terrible dangers and grow stronger in different ways as a result. Maggie's discovery of the villain behind her abduction and that villain's motives all seemed a bit hazy and didn't make a whole lot of sense within the story, but much of the rest of the book was interesting reading.

The romance was the real problem. It just didn't work for me. Given the amount of time that elapsed and the relatively few vision scenes that we see in the book, the building of the romance just wasn't quite there. Still, this author definitely has a way with words, and I'll be curious to see what she does in future books.

Reviewed by Lynn Spencer
Grade : C+

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : March 8, 2012

Publication Date: 2012/01

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Lynn Spencer

I enjoy spending as much time as I can between the covers of a book, traveling through time and around the world. When I'm not having adventures with fictional characters, I'm an attorney in Virginia and I love just hanging out with my husband, little man, and the cat who rules our house.
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