Homecoming

by Jill Marie Landis

Book Overview

For the first time, Eyes-of-the-Sky prayed to the white man's God. "Tell me who I am. Tell me where I belong." One look in the mirror tells her that she is not Comanche, yet she remembers no other... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373786247
• ISBN13: 9780373786244
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Steeple Hill
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful, heartwarming book

Homecoming is one of my favorite books of all time. The story line was unique and well written. The character's emotions leapt off the page. Jill Marie Landis has always been an amazing talent, but Homecoming is by far my favorite of hers. Joe and Eyes of the Sky both have such painful histories, it was a true to joy to follow their journey to overcoming their pain and finding love together. When I got to the end of the book I cried from happiness. That is the highest compliment I can give a book.

Great story

This book was very enjoyable and you get a history lesson with it. Will keep your interest I'm sure. Its a page turner.

An exceptional tale from a gifted storyteller

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed HOMECOMING. It's been a long time since one of my favorite authors wrote a book in my favorite genre and drew me into the characters the way Jill does with this story. A fish out of water or an underdog are my favorite characters. Jill does it all here: emotional trauma, motivating backstory, worlds colliding, humor and family drama, all wrapped up in her captivating style that takes the reader right into the lives and emotions of her story people. This is a single title Steeple Hill Historical, which means it's longer, with room to explore the hero and heroine and fleshed out secondary characters. Jill won RWA's Golden Heart award for her first book, SUNFLOWER. It was published in 1988 and I've been a fan ever since. This is one fangirl who is delighted that JILL MARIE LANDIS returned to her roots in this outstanding western tale of love and faith. The good news? She has more westerns coming our way!

strong Reconstruction Era romance

In 1873 Texas the Bluecoats came and killed her companions; she expected and wished to die with her Comanche, but instead they took her with them. Eyes-in-the-Sky anticipates multiple rapes, but knows she can do little to prevent it. Shockingly the soldiers leave her with Hattie Ellenberg and her adult son Joe. They name her Deborah, but the biggest stunner is seeing her self in a mirror; she was not Comanche, but instead white like her hosts. Hattie opens herself up to the confused young woman who she treats like her daughter. However, Deborah knows only one life and wants to return to it. Joe, who has suffered anguish and heartbreak starting with the deaths of his father and sister, admires her courage and spunk. Still, unlike his mom who turned to the Lord for solace following the killings, Joe remains bitter and angry blaming God until now; somehow the newcomer he did not want in their home has begun to melt the ice frozen around his heart. As they fall in love, which confuses her further as she is unsure what world is hers; Deborah's white family from the east comes for their cousin Rebekiah. Although the basic premise of Eyes-in-the-Sky's background has been done numerous times before, Jill Marie Landis provides a fresh read due to the heroine's reactions to herself, the Ellenbergs, her white family, and her former tribesmen. For instance to survive amongst the Comanche she repressed her previous memories; thus she makes the tale work as a strong Reconstruction Era tale in which everyone needs to feel they belong somewhere preferably with those who they share love. Harriet Klausner

Author's first inspirational romance is an enjoyable read

As a long-time fan of Jill Marie Landis, I was looking forward to finally reading her first foray into inspirational romance. Overall, this was an enjoyable (though fairly forgettable) novel. First, the story. Hattie Ellenberg and her son Joe have lost two family members to a Comanche raid. Hattie herself suffered an "attempted scalping" during the raid, and Joe suffers huge amounts of guilt because he'd been in town preparing to engage in nefarious activities when the raid took place. For some reason, after the attack, the entire town ostracizes the Ellenbergs, especially Hattie, though it was never explained why. Maybe it is historically correct that families who'd been attacked by Indians would have been labeled outcasts from then on, but I would have liked to have been told WHY. There was never any kind of flashback that would tell us what really happened to Hattie; that was kind of bothersome and made it seem like their outcast status was really just some kind of plot device. The Ellenbergs are asked to take in a white woman who had been captured by Comanches and lived as one for most of her life. There is lots of nice tension and conflict there, because the woman, Eyes-of-the-Sky, believes she is truly Comanche and wants to go back to her Comanche family, even though she is more and more drawn to Hattie and Joe and their way of life. The faith elements of the story are very well done. They fit in nicely with the rest of the story and seemed fitting for the time period/setting of the novel. I think Jill Marie Landis did an especially nice job of showing how Eyes-of-the-Sky came to rediscover the faith she'd held as a small child. Joe, too, learns to trust the Lord again. But nothing is over-the-top, preachy, or syrupy sweet. As for the actual writing, structure, technique, etc. Well. There is a glaringly distracting (confusing, even) typo in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH of the book. I have a feeling this was not the author's fault but probably happened during the typesetting or some such thing to do with the publishing process. Steeple Hill should be more careful about things like that. If you can get past that, the rest of the novel reads pretty smoothly. The story is told from three points of view (but in third person), and there is a lot of overlap in recounting the various scenes, which sometimes gets tedious. Hattie calls Joe "son" way too much, which got on my nerves. And at a certain point in the novel, we were in Eyes-of-the-Sky's point of view, yet the author kept referring to her as "the girl." Who thinks of herself as "the girl"? That was distracting. There are a few inconsistencies in the book, too. For instance, at one point a character is described as having green eyes, then later her eyes are called "dark." If they were dark green, fine, but we hadn't been given that info beforehand. Another time, Eyes-of-the-Sky "started crying even harder." Except that we hadn't been told she was crying in the f