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Finding True Home
It’s been ten years since Anna Moser immigrated to Montana from Germany for love and hopes of a better life in the “land of milk and honey.” Instead, she’s found harsh winters and searing summers, sacrifice and back-breaking work. After all these years, she still perceives neighbors looking down their noses with distrust at this “foreign woman.” Did she make a mistake in following her heart to marry Neil and build a ranch and family with him? Yet, after her first visit back to Germany, she finds she no longer belongs there either. In spite of hardships, loss, and near-death illness, will the love of Neil and her children help Anna find her true home?
206 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
3 people want to read
About the author
Heidi M. Thomas
16 books27 followersI'm a Montana native, and recently moved from the Pacific Northwest to northwest Arizona. I have a journalism degree, teach memoirs and beginning fiction classes and do freelance editing. I have published the "Cowgirl Dreams" novel trilogy: Cowgirl Dreams (EPIC Award Winner), Follow the Dream, a WILLA-Award Winner, and Dare to Dream (Finalist International Book Awards); a non-fiction book Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women (Winner Global E-book Awards); and two books in the "American Dreams" series, Seeking the American Dream and Finding True Home.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 13, 2018
Finding True Home by Heidi Thomas is a heart-touching, heart-breaking novel full of love, hope, and emotional honesty. Anna, the main character, emigrates from Germany to Montana just after WWII to marry Neil. It was a time when, in her experience, others still held the Germans, all Germans, responsible for the war. Anna is self-conscious and wanting to be liked, but fearing that others look down on her. She misses her parents terribly and wonders if she should have stayed in Germany. In spite of the harsh weather, hard work, and feeling lonely, she stays in the US. Together, Anna and Neil build a ranch in Eastern Montana, have three children, and raise their family. So much of this story rang so true for me. I cried several times while reading Finding True Home because I was touched to the core by the strength and courage of Anna’s love, every day love that parents experience while raising children. Finding True Home was easy and enjoyable to read, and I finished it within a couple of days. I highly recommend this novel. It is full of genuine grace, courage, and the determined perseverance that comes from loving and raising a family.
November 26, 2018
Heidi M. Thomas’ Finding True Home, a novel that continues a fictionalized story of her mother’s life, is an intriguing sequel to Seeking the American Dream.
Anna Moser immigrated to Montana from Germany as a war bride. Although Anna and her husband Neil are very much in love, life has not been easy. Through harsh winters and searing summers, she’s content to work on their ranch alongside her husband, plus take care of their children and keep up the housework. It’s not the work that Anna finds a burden, it’s the lack of acceptance by her neighbors. She perceives she is still thought of as “that foreign woman,” and that her neighbors can’t forget, nor forgive, someone from Germany, a country America fought in World War II.
The Mosers have two children, Monica and Kevin. Family is everything and it’s tough for Anna to allow her children to find their own way. When their third child, Lizzie, is born, Anna finds her more challenging than the first two. As a baby Lizzie constantly cries, as a little girl she is unpredictable, and as a teen she’s constantly in trouble. Anna struggles to understand her children, especially Lizzie.
When tragedy strikes, Anna and Neil are devastated, but Anna blames herself, the old self-doubt haunts her. Later, when serious illness strikes, Anna is forced to look honestly at her life and the blessings she has been given.
Finding True Home is a heart-warming story, a story parents will recognize in their own lives and in their own struggles raising a family. As this novel so aptly describes, love endures, love is triumphant.
Anna Moser immigrated to Montana from Germany as a war bride. Although Anna and her husband Neil are very much in love, life has not been easy. Through harsh winters and searing summers, she’s content to work on their ranch alongside her husband, plus take care of their children and keep up the housework. It’s not the work that Anna finds a burden, it’s the lack of acceptance by her neighbors. She perceives she is still thought of as “that foreign woman,” and that her neighbors can’t forget, nor forgive, someone from Germany, a country America fought in World War II.
The Mosers have two children, Monica and Kevin. Family is everything and it’s tough for Anna to allow her children to find their own way. When their third child, Lizzie, is born, Anna finds her more challenging than the first two. As a baby Lizzie constantly cries, as a little girl she is unpredictable, and as a teen she’s constantly in trouble. Anna struggles to understand her children, especially Lizzie.
When tragedy strikes, Anna and Neil are devastated, but Anna blames herself, the old self-doubt haunts her. Later, when serious illness strikes, Anna is forced to look honestly at her life and the blessings she has been given.
Finding True Home is a heart-warming story, a story parents will recognize in their own lives and in their own struggles raising a family. As this novel so aptly describes, love endures, love is triumphant.
December 11, 2018
Once again, Heidi Thomas mines her family’s history to fictionalize life in rural 20th century Montana. This particular story documents the tribulations of a German immigrant woman to fit in to a culture where she can’t seem to find her footing among her neighbors’ post-war prejudice, a husband unable to verbalize his feelings, and eventually three children very different in personality from her and from each other. Anna Moser and her American husband, Neil, are willing to face all the arduous work involved and any hardship nature or ranch life can throw at them, in order to hang onto the land. A child of undemonstrative parents, Anna tries to be the best parent she can with her own children, but as they grow up and away from her, over and over again Anna’s response is to clutch much too hard in an effort to keep them near.
This was an interesting book, a realistic picture of the isolation of ranch life, the difficulty of fitting in with others, especially town folks, and the ways rural people learn to cope on their own without benefit of social services or mental health counseling. It functions satisfactorily as a standalone even though it’s the second volume of Anna’s story. As well as a general audience of Western American history, and people who appreciate stories of Western family life, anyone with immigrant relatives a generation or two back will enjoy this illuminating novel.
This was an interesting book, a realistic picture of the isolation of ranch life, the difficulty of fitting in with others, especially town folks, and the ways rural people learn to cope on their own without benefit of social services or mental health counseling. It functions satisfactorily as a standalone even though it’s the second volume of Anna’s story. As well as a general audience of Western American history, and people who appreciate stories of Western family life, anyone with immigrant relatives a generation or two back will enjoy this illuminating novel.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews