We recently finished a series of movies [loosely] based on the books by Janette Oke. The stories are sweet and wholesome and have funny parts, set in the West during pioneer days. Love Comes Softly is the first book, where a woman ends up married to a man, intending only to be the nanny for several months until the wagon train comes through and she can head back East. Love's Enduring Promise is the story of the little girl in the first book, grown-up, having to choose between the dashing young man and the sturdy hard worker. Love's Long Journey followed up the story of that couple, and this time there were bad guys to face. Love's Abiding Joy continued their story, this time with an altogether different kind of bad guy plaguing their town. Love's Unending Legacy brings the heroine back to her hometown and brings new people into her family. The next installment of the series is due out late this spring.
Although the books were Christian "romance" novels, most of the Christianity was stripped from the movies, and they were left with the generic religion you'd expect from Michael Landon, Jr. (The third movie was the notable exception.) Nevertheless, anybody who enjoyed the Little House on the Prairie shows will probably enjoy these. I really liked Janette Oke books once upon a time, and that's what caught my interest with the movies. It turned out, though, that we liked the movies even more than I had anticipated. Maggie enjoyed watching them with us. Even the boys didn't leave the room while the rest of us watched, although in the interest of full disclosure, Andrew much preferred shows 3-4 where there were bad guys to defeat instead of being primarily stories about relationships and love.
I think Rachel and Mom are going to want to bother to put these on their movie lists. Anthea will not!
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That's neat. I just watched those a couple of months ago. Not the last two, but that's just because I haven't found them.
ReplyDeleteThey are quite enjoyable, I particularly like the second one.
lol.. yeah, sounds way too girly for my taste! Do you think they could add some explosions in or something? I might be interested then! ;)
ReplyDeleteSusan, I had to chuckle at your comment about the Little House tv series; I guess the inverse is true, because I didn't like the show or the 2 Love Comes Softly movies I saw. Chalk it up to too many years of reading & rereading both series of books to appreciate a director's artistic license. :)
ReplyDeleteAnthea, Pastor said to tell you that there was an explosion in one of the stories. :-)
ReplyDeleteAngie, the "Love Comes Softly" movies are even further from the book than the "Little House" movies were! (Probably comparable to the "Little House" tv series.) But because I know the Little House books SO much better than the Oke books, the artistic license in "Little House" bothered me lots more than the movies from the Oke books -- so I feeeel your pain.
Susan:
ReplyDeleteYour comment about "Little House" religion reminded me of my little annoyance from those shows (which I loved as a kid.) Every time they were in church (and I DO mean *every*, save once or twice) they sang "Bringing in the Sheaves." I think it was all the folks of Walnut Grove could do to learn ONE hymn, I suppose. :-)
To this day, I cannot hear a reference to that song without thinking of Rev. Alden leading Ma, Pa, the Olsens, and the whole town in their dittie.