Beyond the Ashes: The Golden Gate Chronicles - Book 2

(Disclaimer: The Author is personal friend of mine.) This book picks up where Out of the Ruins left off. But it follows a different set of character for the majority of the book. Beyond the Ashes, focuses on Gerald and Ruby, but still continues the story of Robert and Abby. It really a story of second chances and rebuilding broken lives, and a broken city of the earthquake of 1906. What I like about Karen’s books is that even though they are “Christian Romance” they don’t feel like a romance book. The characters feel real and personal, like people you might know. They also feel just like they fit into the setting and action (which when I’ve read other Christian Romance stories it’s felt like modern characters with modern motivations stuck into a historical setting… I have started and not finished several of these novels.) Karen has created characters and a story that draws you in. I have already preordered Through the Shadows because I really want to spend more time with these characters and to find out what happens to them.

Karen Barnett’s newest release in the Golden Gate Chronicles, Beyond the Ashes, is probably her best book so far. Each page is well-crafted and should be savored, letting the richness of the characters linger in the mind.Ruby Marshall, a young widow who has had enough of grieving, decides to don her nurse’s cap and join her lonely, bachelor brother as he practices medicine in what’s left of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. When she arrives, though, her happy brother introduces not only his fiancée, but his handsome, unattached senior partner who can’t mask his attraction to the beautiful newcomer. Since Ruby has sworn off romance, that’s a problem.This story contains everything a good novel should. There’s devastating loss met by the promise of love. There’s despair conquered by hope. There’s laughter, especially the scenes where Ruby conquers her fear of automobiles by learning to drive.The characters feel like friends. Barnett has not only clearly defined each player, but has crawled inside their minds, showing the reader exactly what that individual is feeling. When their pulse races, so will yours. In one poignant scene where Ruby flees, afraid of facing a new life and possibly a new love, she steps off a trolley car and pauses, “gazing up at the depot clock tower encased in scaffolding. If this city could put itself back together, so could she.” (pg. 134)What I appreciate about Barnett’s writings is that each book in the series introduces new characters, so if you haven’t read the first novel, you can read the second one and not be lost or feel like you have to get “caught up” to the story. Former characters make cameo appearances, but they don’t interfere with the new storyline.Readers won’t be disappointed by this newest release from Abingdon Press.

Wonderful book! I loved getting to know Ruby and Gerald and their families. I was especially impressed with the accuracy of the historical facts regarding the San Francisco earthquake and the beginnings of x-ray technology and radiation. My retired husband, who last worked as the manager of Radiology Imaging Services at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, agreed with me that the passages I read aloud to him were correct both historically and technically. Now, I eagerly await Ms. Barnett's next book!

Interesting story of a different time period with different standards and morality. Not the expected ending if it even has one, but then we can't see the future. It is a story of developing faith and hope I thought it was worth the read.

This book surprised me. It was pretty action-packed and had a lot going on, overlapping, and it was really interesting. SURPRISINGLY

I enjoyed this book partly because of the history and also theLove story. I would recommend it to all who love historical novels.

Subject was good and while a little slow with the storyline did paint a picture of how bad it must have been in San Francisco after the earthquake.

Sweet and predictable story set in San Francisco. I enjoyed the story and the background on cancer treatment beginnings.