I first became aware of the Love Comes Softly series when I saw a preview for the first movie on a local, Christian television station.
This series of movies are based on the books by Janette Oke. At the time, only the first six movies had been made and were being showed each night over the Valentine's Day weekend.
It appealed to me because it was a film by Michael Landon Jr., based on a pioneer story, and looked like a movie that would be both entertaining and appropriate for my husband and I watch.
We watched the first and second movies on TV the first two evenings. We missed the third movie because we were serving at church for a special dinner we hosted on Valentine's Day evening for some of the local school teachers and their significant other.
Because we missed the third movie, neither of us wanted to watch the fourth one on the following evening, having skipped the third. So, I ordered the whole series on DVD and we excitedly waited until we received them! :)
I know my husband enjoyed them, but I am speaking for myself when I say that I was intensely gripped by each one. After each movie ended and the credits began scrolling up the screen, I found myself lost in a stare, having felt like I was a part of it. I had to shake myself out of it and come back to my own world.
Without giving away too much info, I felt like it was my child who died or my own struggle to be endured instead of the actor's or actress's. They were real and moving, much like
Michael Landon Jr.'s father's
work.
When a film is real and emotional, you relate to it and its characters. Since then, the seventh and eighth films in the series have come out on DVD.
Love Comes Softly films on DVD:
Love Comes Softly
A woman's dream to forge a new life for herself on the great American plains becomes a test of her pioneering spirit, her inner strength, and her undying faith. It was Marty Claridge's dream to build her new life on the frontier with her husband. But when the courageous pioneer woman is suddenly widowed, she's offered a new opportunity - to marry a widower in a marriage of convenience that leads to unexpected love.