This story of a Confederate Army nurse who believes that due to her role as a triage nurse she is responsible for the deaths of many young men and for the pain and suffering of many others who did not survive. Haunted by the smells, sights and sounds she is convinced that she has no right to continue to live nor to have any happiness in her life. She is driven by the need to deliver the last words, in person, to the families of 21 of the dead. During her journey to accomplish this task, she encounters a widower from Texas who has come searching for his son who was in the army. Haunted by his past and the way in which is wife died and his son left home, he too believes he cannot have happiness in his life.
A great tale of love, compassion and empathy which rings as true today as it did in 1865.
This was a new author to me but I will read her other works as she fully captures human nature and all of its faults and failings.

During the Civil War Nurse Laurel Covey provides solace to dying soldiers though no one offers comfort to her. Her Massachusetts parents disowned her after forcing her to choose between them and her Virginian spouse, who died at Gettysburg. His family wants nothing to do with a New Englander. Though watching the young die torches her soul, she writes down their last words promising them she would deliver their final message to loved ones.

In 1865 though bone wary from the war, she begins her odyssey to bring comfort to the grieving family members of those she watched die. When two scraggily hooligans assault her, bounty hunter Creede Forrester rescues her. The Texan has come east to find his estranged son, who fought for the Confederacy. She informs him that his son died. Anger joins his feelings of guilt as he never obtained the chance to reconcile with his offspring. He joins her quest out of remorse for failing his late spouse and son. As they venture from one grieving family to another, they turn to each other for solace; love blossoms, but both has major psyche hurts that make neither able to show how they feel.

Though a historical, A REASON TO LIVE is a deep poignant tale that clearly would apply today as Laurel makes the difficult rounds to provide grieving individuals and families with the last words of their deceased loved ones. The lead couple is an enchaning pair who care about others for different reasons. The romance enhances the story one, but this Post Civil War drama belongs to those suffering from the loss of a loved one; perhaps if the presumptive first strike believers had to visit the surviving family members to tell them their loved one died in combat they would take a harder look at the war only option.

Harriet Klausner

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The struggle of the hero and heroine through their own sorrows and guilt to find love with each other touched my heart.

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