The Road to Nowhere

Isa's Journey, Book 2

By: Catherine M Byrne

Narrated by: Jenny Myers

Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

From the author of Follow the Dove and The Broken Horizon

For Isa and Davie Reid, life has led them and their children away from their beloved Scotland to an equally difficult life in the weather-scarred, dusty, Canadian prairies of the early 1900s. Eking out an existence where the land will not produce, surviving when all else seems to challenge mere survival, Isa weathers the elements and shoulders the responsibilities, managing to maintain a homestead that her parents had started, but that left them almost destitute and destroyed their health, with very little help from the homesick Davie.

With the onset of WW1, Davie volunteers to fight.

Isa soldiers on until there is nothing left on the homestead to sustain her. Where will her path lead her next?

Her friend and neighbour, Sarah, escaped an unwanted pregnancy to marry a man twice her age, only to discover another relationship she did not expect. She runs away from the arranged marriage to nurse the wounded during World War I, only to return to the man she was forced to marry years earlier to forge a different relationship. Where will Sarah's path lead her next?

©2014 Isabella Catherine Byrne (P)2023 Isabella Catherine Byrne

Truly enjoyed this book. Sad but intriguing

Would definitely recommend. Very sad all that Iva’s and Davie go through, but a true love story unravels. Story and narration were really good. I would recommend

Very entertaining

Such an entertaining story. I was really captivated by the struggles of the characters on the home front while war raged on.

Great book!

I absolutely loved that Isa & her husband let each other follow their passions and supported each other. It was well written & narrated (loved the Scottish accent). Certain parts of the book made me cry, which shows how well executed the book is. I hope there’s a part 2 to this book, so I can find out what happened to Isa & Donald and the life path Isa’s kids chose.

This was an interesting listen.

I have always been in awe of those who Pioneered the Plains of the US and Canada. The Land is beautiful but can be quite forbidding. It really takes Strength and Fortitude to tackle the land. I liked the way the Author put the story together. Thanks!

Could not stop listening.

A captivating story of two women who left her homeland, Isa, who left Scotland with her family to meet up with her parents and Sarah, who was forced to leave England and marry a man she never met for reasons she was not in fault for happening. . Both met on the ship heading to Canada and the same providence became friends. Both struggle with life in the new country. Life was not easy for both women struggling to get use to the climate and way of life in the new country. When WW1 began, Isa’s husband left to fight in the war, and after learning the Red Cross was looking for women to help take care of the injured, Sarah decided to join and left to Europe to become a nurse.
Without giving too much information on the outcome of the story, it is one that keeps you captive and want to finish it to see the outcome, which you would not be disappointed. Wither you read/listen to the story is one that you will not be disappointed. And the narrator did a great job in the telling!

Clean Historical Romance

This is book three, but I was given a free audiobook code and haven't read the first books yet.
Although set in places I very rarely read about, I enjoyed this story set before, during, and after WWI. It begins in their home of Scotland, but moves as they do to Isa's parents' farm in Canada. I enjoyed learning of their challenges adapting from a life run by the sea to a life very inland. But the war affects the entire world and you've got to just keep taking one step after the other.
There's several surprises in this book, some good and some not, but it's very realistic! Very true to life's difficulties. There isn't a religious undercurrent, if anything they're almost atheist, but they do have a few fancies of Scottish lore involving dreams, visions, and conversations with their dead loved ones. I usually read Christian stories, so these parts were quite odd to me. The narration was good, but every once in a while the women's voices are deeper than the men's.