A Transcontinental Affair

A Novel

By: Jodi Daynard

Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

A sweeping tale of adventure and danger, innovation and corruption, rivalry and romance on America’s first transcontinental train trip.

May 1870. Crowds throng the Boston station, mesmerized by the mechanical wonder huffing on the rails: the Pullman Hotel Express, the first train to travel from coast to coast. Boarding the train are congressmen, railroad presidents, and even George Pullman himself. For two young women, strangers until this fateful day, it’s the beginning of journey that will change their lives.

Sensitive Louisa dreads the trip, but with limited prospects, she’s reluctantly joined the excursion as a governess to a wealthy family. Hattie is traveling to San Francisco to meet her fiancé, yet she’s far more interested in the workings of the locomotive than she is in the man awaiting her arrival. As the train makes its miraculous progress westward, the two women find their lives and hearts entwining in unexpected ways.

As they grow closer, so does the danger in the wilds of the frontier and in the lengths the railroad men will go to protect their investments. Before their journey is over, Louisa and Hattie will find themselves very far from where they intended to go.

©2019 Jodi Daynard (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Not my taste

Did not care for the storyline, not enough to hold my attention. Droned on
sorry

Loved it!

A very entertaining and interesting listen! I could picture most scenes during the narration. Definitely worth the read or listen.

Short Story

This book should of been a short story. There was a lot of unneeded filer. The narrator had issues pronouncing several words and mispronounced them over and over.

All is not as is seems, knowledge is not wisdom

This is a magnificently told story of an historical journey. Thanks to Emily Sutton-Smith, the characters came to life and I fell in love with Hattie and Louisa. The description of the land they journeyed and the train they rode was brilliantly breathtaking. The love they shared grew sweetly as they traveled. The depth of their friendship was delightful. I only wished to know the rest of the story. I hope Jodi Daynard will give us a book 2 so we may know how they lived. A delightful read of historically epic proportion.

It was ok, and not what I thought it would be

Not crazy about this one. The story felt a little forced and unexpected in ways. And I wasn't able to have hardly any sympathy for either of the main characters.

Enjoyable; mediocre narration performance

This was an enjoyable light read with an interesting historical setting. Effort was certainly taken to bring to life an historic train and aspects of its maiden transcontinental (American) voyage. Details are mostly fiction, but seem generally believable. The central tame romance between two quite different and quite interesting young women was compelling. The prose was nice to read, but not magnificent. There is a major upset along the way that really intensified many characters and created an opportunity to learn more about them. I actually reread much of that part as the scenario seemed to me to stretch plausibility—seemed surreal. I think it was actually surreal at first for the characters too. That episode is both one of the strongest parts of the story and one of the weakest. It must have been demanding to write. The end felt underwritten. There was a lot of buildup along various threads throughout the novel, and some of them were wrapped up a bit too hastily.

The narration performance was below average and probably detracted from enjoyment of the story. It was not horrible and it had quite consistent performances of the different characters, but besides animating the characters differently than I would have imagined them, there was often emphasis on words and phrases that I believe altered what I saw in the original text. Sometimes it seemed like the narrator wanted to dramatize, but hadn't prepared enough to dramatize appropriately.

Just Ok

I love historical fiction but this book was a little slow. I wasn’t expecting the lesbian theme - I’m not for or against, I just didn’t think it really added to the book and the ending wasn’t really believable for the time period.

great read

really great twist liked the plot and ending , i can't believe i am forced to write a review. i don't have time right now

slow but enjoyable for the characters

yes it was slow, surely more interesting if you're into the time period and train aspect, but it paid off well enough for me. I enjoyed the narrators voice, it was appropriate for a historical. I found myself invested in the characters more than expected. I do wish that we had been able to see further on in their story to see how life works out for them. it was also a bit insta-love which I'm not a big fan of, but it was nice.
For anyone wary or curious, it's not at all even remotely explicit, just some kissing.

What a great train Story

I loved this story and performance grabbed me into the whole thi g with so many vivid details. Whew!😁