Aboard Providence (Uncharted Beginnings Book 1)

I truly enjoyed this story and am confident the subsequent stories would be equally enjoyable. This was my first book by this author and I truly enjoyed it.

A prequel to the delightful Uncharted series. The author does an excellent job of laying out why and how the group end up where they are in the Uncharted series. The touch of sci-fi that helps set up the Uncharted series is apparent here too. As in that series, the characters are complex, believable and compelling.I highly recommend the entire prequel series and the Uncharted series.

Aboard Providence is a sweet, clean, entertaining tale about two young people in 19th century America finding love as their families flee a United States on the brink of the civil war, searching for their own island paradise.It sounds as if it’s going to be a sweeping historical tale, but it’s not really; it merely uses a historical setting to tell the story of a gentle romance between a man and a woman who have contrasting dreams. With that in mind, this isn’t the kind of story that will blow you away, but it certainly has plenty of enjoyable content to keep your attention until the end.I did rather enjoy this book. I liked the main characters, Marian and Jonah. They were both very earnest, honest characters with good intentions, quite likable protagonists and a couple worth rooting for, though I never had any doubt that they wouldn’t end up together in the end. The romance is sweet but nothing exciting, as these kinds of period romances tend to be. Still, you want to read to make sure they end up together and all is well.The story is very clear-cut, and the premise is laid out very cleanly in the beginning. However, what seems like the central conflict fizzles out over time and changes into something a little less dramatic. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does take away from the magnitude of the story somewhat. I was hoping for something a little more exciting based on the first few chapters.I also found several holes in the story—namely, the eight families’ plan to find an uninhabited island off the coast of South America in the 19th century. It just seemed like a highly implausible and illogical plan, but perhaps it would have made sense in that time frame, I’m not sure. In any case, the book, and its ensuing series, is much more about the characters than it is about the premise, so it doesn’t matter as much. So long as you can put aside your doubts about that, you can enjoy this book.Additionally, though apparently categorized as Christian fiction, Aboard Providence is not at all a book of ministrations, and the Christian elements merely feel like a part of the setting rather than a message from the author. If you are someone who prefers to read fiction without religious themes, you likely won’t be offended by this book.All in all I did enjoy Aboard Providence. I won’t call it a riveting story, but I did find myself looking forward to reading it every day. There were some moments where I felt I was being beaten on the head by the conflict—I mean, I get it! Marian wants to stay with her family, and Jonah wants to go back to Philadelphia to finish medical school!—but it wasn’t so bad that I felt like I needed to put the book down.The story was also well written and had a great tone, so I think fans of regency romance/historical romance will enjoy this simple but pleasant read.

I was not sure that after reading the Uncharted series, I would enjoy reading he Uncharted Beginnings as much. I found it , however, to be just as captivating as the ones I had read. I love this author's work and find it so absorbing. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys clean, well written Christian fiction, filled with great characters, interesting stories, with a bit of mystery, a bit of romance, great adventure, and wonderful life lessons. I look forward to the next one.

This book is like taking a journey with a group of people wanting a better life. I will admit it seemed a little slowish at the beginning -but I am so glad I continued reading it. The extra long ship travel, taking them to a land far from where they had planned. A young man who never wanted to go, feels he should get his diploma to be a doctor, plus he had just been warned that he would be questioned about an incident at the hospital he worked at. But other things are also happening. And now their lives will begin. And the book ends at a good place.

I liked this book, it had a very interesting concept and I think it was well executed, and it definitely take a good imagination to come up with an idea like the one in Aboard Providence. At first it was a slow start for about the first 50 pages, but once the plot picked up there were a few good twists and turns.I liked getting to know all the characters in this novel, however I found Jonah to be annoying, he was selfish and only seemed to care about his future and needs than those of others once they get to the Land. But I did like how Jonah started to change his mind. I liked how Marian was more level-headed and in my honest opinion I believe that she deserves someone better than Jonah. The side characters in this novel were interesting, but I wish we could have found out more about them.I enjoyed finding out more about the Land - however I wish there had been more descriptions about the new island besides the gray-leafed tree. I felt like the world-building was lacking and could have been developed some more. I thought the ending was very sweet and I was happy.This book was a prequel to the author's Uncharted series which is also supposed to be good. I don't know if I will read the rest of the series but this was a good introduction to Keely Brooke Keith.I am giving this book 3/5 Stars because even though I enjoyed it I wish the world-building had been fleshed out a bit more.

Enjoyed reading this book. The book was not boring and I wanted to know how it would end so I read it in one day. Don't know if I will jump into another book right away, wouldn't want to get involved in another book as I was in this one tomorrow. J😀

I read this after reading All Things Beautiful. It's Much better than All Things Beautiful. I'm still not wild about the huge font size, but it is what it is.As for the story, I thought the characters were pretty good, the development interesting, the ideas of starting up a new society, and the grey leaf trees were interesting, and the issues of not letting down family as well as having to choose between family and a potential husband are as real now as when this story takes place (1800s).I didn't care for a couple of characters, or how a kid of was it 10 or 12 was allowed to do awful things to others with no mention of consequences (and outrage by one character that others might want consequences for the horrid boy who endangered people's lives) - he never even apologizes. I didn't care for much of the dialogue. I wish this writer would write like people speak, instead of it being so wooden and awkward. It's not an 1800s thing. I've read many books written in the 1800s. They had much better and more realistic dialogue.I'm not interested in reading any other books in this series, and will likely be donating these books or making recyled paper from them, but they were a fairly interesting distraction during a -40 cold snap last month when I was stuck indoors at a hotel after my winter coat was stolen, waiting for a replacement coat from Amazon.