“Anna Lakeman has spent her life working alongside her paleontologist father, drawing intricate sketches at every dig. When they find dinosaur bones near their home in Wyoming Territory, they're swiftly caught up in the era known as the Bone Wars. But when her father becomes sick and an old beau, Joshua Ziegler, returns for the summer, Anna's world is upended and the practical, orderly life she has made for herself shatters.
Medical student Joshua Ziegler left his hometown to forget the one woman he truly loved and deeply hurt--Anna Lakeman. But when he returns, time hasn't erased the feelings they've always had for each other. When Joshua's nephew goes missing--just like his sister did years ago--and Anna's job is threatened, tensions mount and dangerous secrets are unburied. How can they keep the perils of the past from threatening their renewed affection?”
Series: Book #1 in the “Treasure of the Earth” series.
Spiritual Content- Scriptures are read, mentioned, remembered, & thought over; Many prayers & Thanking and Praising God; Church going, sermons, & a hymn; Talks about God, Jesus, His love, & forgiveness; 'H's are capital when referring to God; Joshua wants to serve God in his career as a doctor; Anna has neglected her relationship with God for the past few years, but being caught in a flash flood makes her pray about Him taking her home (she adds that she feels useless to God anyway) and has confidence that she would spend eternity in Heaven (*Spoiler* At the half-way point, Anna asks God to forgive her and feels reconciliation from Him *End of Spoiler*); At church, Joshua listens a bit to the sermon and ends up tuning out the pastor’s words due to something else going on (his sister nudges him to pay attention); When a young boy is missing, Anna thinks that “God Almighty knew where the boy was. She had faith in that. But whether or not He would show them where to find [the boy] was beyond her.”; Anna & Joshua have a few discussions & thoughts about creation and science (including they both believe that the scientific and church communities used to go hand in hand before Darwin’s book came out, that “the church shuns science because of the new prevalence of evolution. And scientists shunt the church because they think we’re ignorant”, & a mention of the majority of the fossils being from the Flood which happened “thousands of years ago”; When Joshua catches himself using the term “bad blood” about someone, he remembers Anna’s words that they are all sinners & that sin is responsible, not someone’s blood (there’s then a paragraph about history showing that plenty of people who were raised in horrid environments end up doing nasty things themselves, however); Julian has begged God for years to make him normal, but Damian would tell him that God hasn’t done anything for him; Anna’s father warns her about thinking that her love can change a person, that only God’s love can do that; When Anna is in a scary situation, God tells her that she is His and she’s reminded that He is in control; God tells Joshua to leave Anna in His hands and Joshua shakes off the words because of anger; Mentions of God, Jesus, His will, forgiveness, & miracles; Mentions of prayers, praying, thanking God, & blessings over food; Mentions of those & events in the Bible Mentions of churches, church going, services, pastors, sermons, & hymns; Mentions of being a Christian & doing the “Christian thing to do” by being kind to others; Mentions of sin & sinners; A few mentions of Bibles & Bible reading; A couple mentions of God’s creation; A couple mentions of mission work; A couple mentions of sharing one’s testimony; A couple mentions of something being a “godly sacrifice”; A mention of someone’s talent being a gift from God; A mention of someone being a godsend; A mention of thanking heaven; A mention of singing the doxology at church;
*Note: The phrase “Heavens” and “Good heavens” are used as a sigh or exclamation x4 and x2 respectively; *Spoiler* When Julian’s father dies, Julian feels the coffin with rocks because his father didn’t deserve to be buried at the church cemetery & deserved to “burn for all eternity”; Julian feels a bit of guilt for lying to the clergyman but believes his lie to be necessary *End of Spoiler*; *Major Spoilers* When Julian kidnaps Anna, she sees both sides of his split personality & when she prays out loud about him, the dark side screams, implying a demon or evil spirit is in him; Julian wonders about God fixing him like Anna said, but Damian tells him that God can’t fix anything because He’s the one who caused their pain by creating their father; Julian chooses to believe that God loves him and feels lighter, thinking that Damian is gone but he comes back; It ends with Julian being shot and Joshua witnessing to him about Jesus, and Anna forgiving him before he passes *End of Major Spoilers*; Discussions & mentions of dinosaurs; A few mentions of the evil look in a man’s eyes and face; A mention of someone acting like the “devil himself” is chasing him.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a form of ‘idiot’, two forms of ‘shut up’, and ‘stupid’s; A bit of eye rolling; Finding the skeleton of a person & another person hiding it (up to semi-detailed); Being held hostage/kidnapped & Threatened with death (up to semi-detailed); Being shot, being shot at, Being caught in a bad storm, a flash flood, falling in a trap, injuries, blood/bleeding (up to semi-detailed); Taking care of an ill family member (up to semi-detailed); Julian is beaten to the point of being unconscious & verbally abused by his father (on page, up to semi-detailed); When caught in a flash flood, Anna wonders if she should just give up and drown (but she continues to fight for her life); A side character (whose point of view we see often), Julian, was physically & verbally abused by his father (we see him being verbally abused & being beaten on page to the point of being unconscious) & his mother would encourage him to not be tainted by his father’s ugliness (Julian wishes that he could give the same pain to his father; Shortly after the prologue, it’s said that his mother left and Julian is hurt that she didn’t take him with her; His father taunts and blames him for her leaving; *Spoilers* When his father confesses to have actually killed her and buried her in his garden, Damian kills his father *End of Spoiler*; *Spoiler* Anna’s father collapses (an apoplexy) & it’s discovered he has something wrong with his heart that could cause him to die; Anna cares for him and he starts to do better (up to semi-detailed) *End of Spoiler*; Joshua’s young nephew goes missing & there is a search for him (we see panic and grief from his family, up to semi-detailed) *Spoiler* It turns out that the boy ran away from home and realized he made a major mistake *End of Spoiler*; When Joshua shares his concerns about Julian, Anna fusses at him about gossiping (Joshua apologizes to Anna, but is still suspicious of Julian; Julian kills animals (prairie dogs, birds, squirrels, & fish) to feed his garden (his mother told him when it naturally happens that it helps the earth and not to kill the animals himself, but he doesn’t stop because his garden flourishes afterwards (*Spoiler* Julian brings Anna dead animals for her garden and she throws up after seeing the carcasses, up to semi-detailed *End of Spoiler*); Anna is scared that her horse might have died after surviving a flash flood’s effects (but is okay); Many mentions of missing children, what could have happened to them (including murder), & their families’ grief (including Joshua’s family for his sister, up to semi-detailed); Many mentions of a man’s violent temper, everyone being afraid of him, & the man physically and verbally abusing his family; Mentions of murders, deaths, bodies, & crimes (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of deaths & grief (for a mother, a father, a daughter, a sister, a best friend); Mentions of a parent being sick (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of pain, passing out, injuries, & blood/bleeding; Mentions of stealing & stolen items; Mentions of throwing up; Mentions of hatred; Mentions of gossip & rumors; Mentions of manure; A few mentions of the Civil War, division, & prejudices; A few mentions of the deaths of men & horses (barely-above-not-detailed); A few mentions of someone being thrown from a horse, her injuries, & resetting her broken leg (barely-above-not-detailed); A few mentions of lies, lying, & liars; A couple mentions of jealousy; A mention of drowning; A mention of bullies;
*Note: Julian talks about “the darkness” inside of him and his brother, Damian, embracing it while their mother would tell Julian to fight the darkness (because of this, Julian believes something is wrong with him & he needs to be fixed by a woman who will care for him; The light and dark inside of him battle each other & we see this on page (up to semi-detailed); When Anna is kind to him, he latches on to her for her to fix him; Joshua and her father warn her about Julian’s attention/obsession with her, but she is very stubborn about it and continues to defend and see him despite an inkling of concern she has because she hates to be wrong; *Major Spoilers, but Important Trigger Note* Towards the end, Julian holds Anna hostage; Damian is actually another part of Julian and not another person, so the person that killed his father, a young girl he had a crush on as a child, tried to kill Joshua, & kidnapped Anna, was Julian under the influence of Damian (spilt-personality); Julian is unaware that he did all of that; Anna sees the switch in personality when being held captive and is scared by it; Julian ends up being killed at the end after Anna witnesses to him and forgives him *End of Major Spoilers*; Julian believes that all fathers are awful because his father was; Anna is told that she shouldn’t be in the science field because she’s a women & it’s mentioned a handful of times (including when she says she wishes there “was a bit more help for the fairer sex”); A couple mentions of history showing “that plenty of people who were raised in horrid environments end up doing some nasty things themselves”.
Sexual Content- A hand kiss, a cheek kiss, a nose kiss, five forehead/head kisses, two not-detailed kisses, three barely-above-not-detailed kiss, and semi-detailed kiss (with Joshua moaning in both); Remembering a kiss (barely-above-not-detailed); Wanting to kiss (barely-above-not-detailed); Touches, Embraces, Hand holding, Butterflies, & Nearness (including Joshua touching Anna’s hair, all up to semi-detailed); Wanting to touch & embrace (barely-above-not-detailed); Blushes; Noticing (barely-above-not-detailed); Joshua pulls Anna onto his lap; Joshua makes Anna blush by mention about them getting married and her being “in the family way” one day; After a kiss, Joshua tells Anna that it could be dangerous to kiss her again because that kiss brought “the fire of passion inside [of him] to a roar” (Anna blushes and he apologizes that he didn’t mean to embarrass her & he steps back so he doesn’t do anything to disrespect her); Julian was obsessed with a girl as a child & now becomes infatuated/obsessed with Anna; Mentions of kisses & kissing; Mentions of flirting & blushes; Mentions of jealousy; A few mentions of reputations; A couple mentions of crushes; Love, being in love, & the emotions.
-Anna Lakeman, age 21
-Joshua Ziegler
P.O.V. switches between them & Julian
Set in 1878 (Prologue in 1869 & Epilogue in 1880)
336 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
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My personal Rating-
{Warning for those sensitive to: murders (including of a young girl), physical and verbal abuse from a parent, & a person with a mental illness causing harm to others.}
This is one of those books that as soon as I finished it, I just had to pause and take it all in, trying to figure out my thoughts. A part of me feels a bit heavy, but another part really liked the message of reaching out to others with the love of God because that’s a really important thing—when it’s God-inspired. Which I’ll come back to in a moment.
In all honesty (which is all I ever do on this blog and in my reviews), had this book not been by this author I wouldn’t have read it. I truly have no interest in this field—the cover definitely would’ve enticed me because it’s a beautiful color, but no interest in dinosaurs and the paleontologist field so I would have passed. However, I decided to read it because I’ve enjoyed other books by the author in the amount of faith content she includes. That said, I was definitely expecting this to be a much…lighter read that it actually was.
The beginning of this book was heavier than I was expecting with having a side character being verbally and physically abused by his father. Because we continue to see that young man’s perspective as the book continues, we see him wrestle with the darkness inside of him, and I began to be a little worried about this burdening my heart reading it. But I held onto the hope that the author would have a great amount of faith content like all the prior books I’ve read by her. And there was. This book had a major topic of being kind to those who might be strange or different than you & also the topic of forgiveness is very important. Those parts were really good to see. There still is that heaviness, though, because of other parts of the story.
I was very curious if this book would mention the evolution approach or a creation approach since it has to deal with dinosaurs. It was interesting to see how the author lightly touched on that topic and God and science being hand in hand. I look forward to seeing if this is discussed more in the second book of the series.
Both Anna and Joshua definitely had their flaws and things that they needed to discuss with the other, but they were also really cute together. She was a bit too prideful and stubborn at times, but she was working on it—sometimes—which is more than I can say for some stubborn female leads. I did get very frustrated with her at the end though with her reactions to Joshua and her father trying to protect her. She was very frustrating then. Coming back to my one about reaching out to someone with God’s love—when it’s inspired by God. Anna did reach out to Julian because she’s a Christian and it was the right thing to do, but it felt like it was more to honor the memory of her friend who was kind to him growing up. As much as I dislike to admit it, I probably would have been in a similar situation as Anna there at the end—though I’d like to think I wouldn’t have been so stubborn about needing protection like she was.
There were definitely things I liked about this book (the faith content) and some things I didn’t like. I flew through reading it and even though I was pretty sure I knew how the ending would go (I was completely correct), I still wanted to know how it would all work out. I would give a caution about this book to sensitive readers and mark it for 15+ for sure, however.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
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