An epic sweeping story that covers many years but also makes the story feel close and intimate without feeling small. I highly recommend pretty much everything this author writes because she has a wonderful style. ( )

I hated for the saga to end... ( )

If you loved the first two books in this trilogy, chances are good that you'll like this one too. But I have to admit, I got bored with it. In fact, I got so bored I didn't even finish it, which is very unusual for me.

I also started to feel a bit as though the author were preaching at me about certain topics of social reform-- which admittedly are still relevant today and it's interesting to know that many of the same arguments were made in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as we made in the last quarter of the twentieth-- or was she putting modern ideas into older heads? Without doing my own research, it's hard to tell.

But ultimately I just got bogged down in all the new characters of the new generations and the unchanging perfections or foibles of the elder. It all became monotonous and I gave up. ( )

A Season of Swans begins in 1870 and the focus of the story shifts from Alex and Rane Falconer to their granddaughter Gincie and her husband Travis Culhane and their three children. Now happily settled in California, a surprise return from Gincie's past leads her to a drastic move that has unexpected consequences and the Culhane family must leave California and return to the family's farm in Maryland, Wild Swan. Eventually the couple learns to overcome their problems resettling and the aging Alex and Rane turn over the running of the farm and the raising of the Thoroughbreds to the Culhanes. The story then shifts to that of their three children as they reach adulthood and settle into careers of their own.

There's a whole lot more to the story than that but it's really hard to put it all into words without writing a book report so I'll skip that. What De Blasis excels at is putting her characters into the events and politics of the day, which provides a highly entertaining way to retell the nation's history. From a Klan raid in the old south, to the events following Little Big Horn, to labor riots in Chicago and more as the author weaves her characters in to real events from our nation's history. My only complaint is that this book is a bit too long and should have finished it up about 200 pages sooner. After three books there's just one too many coming back from the edge of death recovery leading to another overly happy marriage that it got a bit old after a while, and a little too busy. Four stars. The first two books in the series (in order),

Wild Swan
Swan's Chance ( )

De vurige Gincie Culhane vestigt zich met haar echtgenoot en kinderen op het uitgestrekte Amerikaanse landgoed ‘Wild Swan’. Daar, bij Gincie’s grootouders Alex en Rane Falconer, vinden de Culhanes een warm thuis. Terwijl Gincie en haar man zich vol enthousiasme richten op het fokken van volbloeden, groeien hun kinderen op tot energieke, jonge mensen.
De tweeling Tay en Kace is onafscheidelijk en onvermoeibaar; Lexy, hun oudere zuster, wordt even mooi, dapper en intelligent als haar moeder. Terwijl om hen heen de grote familieclan van de Falconers een veelbewogen leven leidt, beleven de kinderen Culhane ieder hun eigen drama's en triomfen.

Tay en Kace ontdekken dat ze allebei hartstochtelijk veel houden van het mysterieuze meisje Georgie. Lexy begeeft zich in grote gevaren als een van de eerste vrouwelijke journalisten van Amerika. In haar onvermoeibare zoektocht naar de waarheid zal ze worden bijgestaan door Hawk Mackenna, een raadselachtige collega-journalist in wiens armen Lexy de sensuele liefde ontdekt.

Net als hun voorouders kunnen de Culhane-kinderen niet voorzien wat de toekomst hen zal brengen, maar één ding weten ze zeker: ook hun hart zal voor altijd verbonden blijven met de goede aarde van 'Wild Swan'. ( )