At the end of the last book Katie boards a plane to Africa with Eli. This book is all about learning how to adjust her impulsive and brash personality to the relaxed pace of a new culture. She falls in love with the country and the missionary work as she and Eli decide where their lives are headed. Eli's mom's relationship with Katie was particularly good. It was the finally book in the series, though we see her journey continue in the Christy Miller marriage and baby years series. Katie has never been my favorite character, but this one was a good ending to her story and I love how her adventure turned out.

“The key is for you to discover what you love to do, what you were created to do, and then do it for the people around you with love. That is the abundant life, dear girl, no matter where in the world you live.” ( )

Great Ending to the Katie Weldon series. Though I was sad to see it go. Part of me wishes there were more. ( )

Fair warning about my 5 star rating on this one - I started reading the Christy Miller series (the one this is one of several continuations of) when I was in 6th grade or so. These characters are like real people to me (well I have been reading about them for more than half my life!) and I always am excited to find out the continuing story. I have no clue what anyone coming to these books later would think of them. And Michael! I love when Robin lets us see glimpses of prior characters in the books that we thought we would never see again. Her ability to connect the characters in all her books (even the series she has written for adult women all have connections to these books) always amazes me. ( )

Finally and Forever by Robin Jones Gunn is the conclusion of the Katie Weldon series. More than that, this book wraps up loose ends from over twenty years of writing by Robin Jones Gunn. Katie was a secondary character in Gunn's Christy Miller series, Sierra Jensen series, and Christy and Todd: The College Years trilogy. Christy's story was wrapped up in that trilogy (though she makes occasional appearances in other books), Sierra's story concluded with Love Finds You in Sunset Beach, Hawaii, and now Katie's story concludes with this book.

Katie, in her usual spunky and impulsive style, has followed her boyfriend Eli to Africa, where his parents work with a mission organization. Now that Katie and Eli have finished college, they both hope to find a way to be useful in Kenya. Will Katie be able to adjust to life in Africa? Will she and Eli find purpose for their lives -- and will those purposes be compatible, or will the two of them end up going their separate ways?

Gunn's squeaky-clean inspirational romances are better written than most of that genre, and she does a good job of creating interesting characters and developing relationships between them. Her teen and young adult novels feel realistic -- they're a good depiction of conservative Evangelical Christian culture. As such, they may not be of interest to those unfamiliar or disinterested in that culture. For their target audience, however, they are a pleasant diversion.

One final note on the cover: this book's cover is particularly heinous. The first three books in this series have covers that are actually expressive of Katie's personality and of the tone of the story -- but with this book, the publishers threw all of that out of the window and decided to go for a soft-focus picture of a dreamy-eyed girl who looks like Africa would chew her up and spit her out. I'm really unimpressed. It looks like they just gave up and slapped any old stock photo on this cover. ( )