Loved and Lost

By: Janeen Swart

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

LOVED AND LOST follows Josie Morris, a determined woman who navigates a life filled with challenges and triumphs. The narrative begins in 1938 with Bailey, a young woman caring for her Great Aunt Josie who has a mysterious past.

Josie recounts her early life, starting with her parents' move to Indiana and their struggles to build a successful farm. Josie marries Jim McKnight, but their relationship deteriorates, leading to Jim's death. She later marries George Morris, and together they build a prosperous life, focusing on farming and raising livestock.

Josie faces numerous challenges. She navigates these challenges with a mix of stubbornness and strategic thinking, ultimately resolving most conflicts. In her later years, Josie reflects on her life, acknowledging her mistakes and the impact of her actions on others. Josie spends her final days with Bailey and John, finding comfort in their care. She dies peacefully in 1939, leaving behind a legacy of resilience and determination.

Atypical for Me but Enjoyable

This story is not at all like my typical genre. While I do enjoy historical novels, they are set in significantly different time periods, and far different locations. However, the story was compelling, had an excellent twist at the end, and provided a measured analysis of a woman's place in the world from the middle to the end of the 19th Century.

I found the protagonist difficult to like. She embodied plenty of negative characteristics but her atypical personality, quite far afield from most women of her time, made her harsh nature easier to accept. She was an extremely odd mix of those things to which women aspired during this period in history, i.e. wealth, status, prestige, but she likewise demonstrated a sense of independence not usual for women of her day. The protagonist was neither generous or glamorous; rather, I imagined her as cantankerous, vain, and too far wrapped-up in worldly and material pleasures, a personality developed by her close relationship to her father who never had a son in which to invest, making the protagonist's personality more testosterone-charged.

Nevertheless, for something so unusual, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, despite the use of virtual narration, to which I suppose I am becoming more accustomed as I continue to make selections based solely on content, no matter the type of narration.