Love Is a Journey
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Love is a Journey is a sequel to Kaleidoscope of Life with the same central characters as previously met in that book. As the title suggests, it is a love story. The love-journey for the feisty redhead, Karen Evans, begins with nursing training in the Western New South Wales town of Dubbo where Karen meets her truelove. It progresses on to the Solomon Islands, a place of dangers, adventures and fulfilling family love, long before inter-country adoption and feminism were trends in society.
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About the Book
Love Is a Journey (formerly Love’s Quest) is a sequel to the Australian rural novel Kaleidoscope of Life by Deslee Campbell. Many of the same well-loved characters met in the prequel reappear, although here, the central character is twenty-two-year-old Karen Evans, not the child Sally Evans. This historical novel begins at the very end of 1945. World War II has concluded, and Karen has to find new employment, being demobilized from the Australian Women’s Land Army after Christmas. Karen started nursing training at Dubbo Base Hospital and immediately met Father Simon Anderson who was attracted to her romantically. Karen’s cousin’s army buddy, Peter Dillon, was similarly interested. Karen persisted in her intention to qualify as a nursing sister and avoided making any commitment to either man, but she became engaged to Simon Anderson in December 1947, on the eve of his departure for the Solomon Islands, the place of his childhood. With her precious wedding gown in her hand luggage, Karen arrived at the Solomon Islands early in 1949 and continued love’s journey, with its many tribulations and dangers. Note that all Australian characters are fictional as are those on Norfolk Island. Some missionaries and clergy in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands were historical characters but all dialogues and events are fictionalized, while set within the accurate historical background.
About the Author
Deslee Campbell was raised in a hamlet near Wellington, New South Wales, Australia. She spent the school holidays on her grandparent’s grazing property near Canberra. Deslee has travelled widely and holds seven university qualifications in education, psychology, theology, and ancient history including a doctorate from the University of Sydney in Byzantine women’s history. Now retired, Deslee taught in Dubbo, Gilgandra, Orange, and Richmond, and was later an educational psychologist and counselor in western Sydney. Deslee is married and has four children and three grandchildren.