Review: A Betty Neels Christmas by Betty Neels

"A Betty Neels Christmas" actually contains two stories written by, of course, Betty Neels.  They are "A Christmas Proposal," and "A Winter Wedding."  Both are stories about handsome, older, mature doctors who eventually fall in love with plain looking, gentle hearted women who believe that no one will ever ask them to marry.  These two stories follow the same general plotline of practically every Betty Neels story that I've read so far:  a plain looking woman (often a nurse) harbours an impossible attraction to an older accomplished and handsome man (usually a doctor, and usually of Dutch descent).  Eventually, somehow, the plain looking nurse catches the doctor's attention, but is unaware of her effect on the doctor.  She believes herself to be unable to compete with another gorgeous woman who appears to be a more suitable mate for the doctor. 

All you have to do is substitute the names of Bertha Soames (who is not a nurse, but rather a sheltered young woman who is also plain looking), and Oliver Hayes-Smith (an English doctor, not Dutch) into "A Christmas Proposal."  Bertha is competing with her step-sister, Clare, for the attentions of the doctor.  In "A Winter Wedding," Emily Seymour, a plain looking, but competent nurse, and Professor Renier Jurres-Romeijn (definitely a Dutch doctor) are the characters that appear in that story.  Renier has to convince Emily that he is not interested in two other girls who vie for his attention, one of whom is her own sister, Louisa. 

Both stories are contemporary, but they seem to take place (in my opinion) in the sixties...maybe up until the eighties.  There is no mention of the electronic devices that we are familiar with today (no cell phones, smart phones, Blackberry machines, iPods, etc., although there are references to getting bleeped (I assume this is from a pager of some sort).  Social media is not mentioned at all.  Of course, Betty Neels passed on in 2001, before the advent of Facebook. 

I like that Betty Neels' stories are clean, but I find some of her heroines to be pushovers.  Bertha Soames falls into this category.  Other heroines are more belligerent when the hero says something that hurts their feelings as Darcy does to Elizabeth in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice when he declares that she is not handsome enough to tempt him.  Emily Seymour fits this type. 

As for Oliver and Renier, both act similarly enough in that they really make it difficult for their respective objects of affections to realize that they are interested in them...especially when the men appear to continue paying court to the competition.  I sometimes find this a bit annoying:  when the men discover that their ladyloves misunderstand the nature of the relationships with the competition, they often continue to allow the heroines to remain unenlightened about their real feelings.  Often there is a big reveal later, which is usually tied to some big romantic gesture that the men do to demonstrate the depth of their affections.  There's only so much extra angst that I can take, and I think that reading the same formulaic development in each of these stories has left me rather unenthusiastic about the women being kept in the dark and having their romantic suffering prolonged every time.  I wonder what would have happened if a male lead actually revealed the truth of his feelings right when he realized that there was a misunderstanding, or if a female lead recognized the feelings of the hero rather than remaining obtuse and clueless. 

That being said, I will probably still continue reading Betty Neels' books.  As I mentioned before, they are clean, and I enjoy the romantic tension that is built between the heroes and heroines in her novels. 

Review: Homestands by Sally Bradley

Homestands, by Sally Bradley, is the first in the Chicago Wind series, which feature stories about second chances.  The novel covers what I would call messy relationships, because it touches the topic of adultery, and its consequences in the lives of Mike and Meg Conner.  Mike is a professional major league baseball player who unexpectedly runs into his ex-wife at a ball game...along with their five year old son, Terrell, whose existence has been unknown to Mike until this point.  In fact, even at this accidental meeting, Mike is still not aware that Terrell is his son, but finds out the truth shortly after when he visits Meg to talk to her about rekindling their relationship. 

Meg does not want to have anything to do with Mike, especially not after his betrayal and abandonment, and although she has been a believer for a year, she is not ready to forgive her ex-husband.  She agrees to let Mike into the life that she built for herself and Terrell only because Mike threatens to go through the law courts to take Terrell away from her.  Mike is angry that Meg had kept Terrell's existence a secret, but hopes that if he shows her forgiveness over keeping Terrell's birth a secret, that she would forgive him of his betrayal of their marriage. However, Mike and Meg need to work through anger, guilt, forgiveness, differences in faith, and more secrets before a reconciliation is possible between the two of them.

This novel covers a lot of ground:  adultery, secret babies, a coming to faith story, struggles with forgiveness, spousal abuse, abortion, and a mentally unhinged stalker.  Did I mention anything about messy relationships before?  In spite of all these things, there was also hope in this story. 

The author shows us that neither Meg nor Mike were blameless in the collapse of their marriage, but that both made choices with far reaching consequences.  The tension ramps up when faith was tossed into the picture; we know that Meg must choose whether to forgive Mike or not, sooner or later, because there will be no healing without it. 

I found Homestands to be a fascinating story about forgiveness, and will be looking out for more books by Sally Bradley.

Review: Plain Choice by Sarah Price

This review contains spoilers from the previous novels in the Plain Fame Series.


Plain Choice, by Sarah Price, is the latest in the Plain Fame Series which included Plain Fame, Plain Change, Plain Again, and Plain Return.  Plain Choice picks up where Plain Return left off:  Alejandro Diaz, the famous hip hop/rap artist also known as Viper, has returned to his life outside of Lititz, Pennsylvania, where his Amish raised wife, Amanda, is staying with his daughter, Isadora, the result of a one night stand before he met Amanda.  Things don't look good for our protagonists.  Against Alejandro's wishes, Amanda had returned to Lititz in order to give Isadora stability instead of the difficult and transient lifestyle that they would all have to face if they travelled along with Alejandro on his concert tours.   Alejandro comes to realize that the life he offers for Amanda and Isadora may not be what his wife and daughter need.  Though he loves Amanda dearly and wishes for her to be by his side as he tours the world, he also tries to contemplate how he might be able to let Amanda go so that she can return to the Amish world which she appears to be more comfortable in. 

When Alejandro leaves Amanda behind in Pennsylvania, she realizes that their marriage is now in a precarious place, and waits in vain to hear from him, but Alejandro is already putting distance between them.  The paparazzi have also been taking misleading photos of her and Harvey, the farmhand that Alejandro hired to help the Beiler family, and speculation about a relationship between them is appearing in the tabloids.  Can Amanda's and Alejandro's marriage be saved? 

I liked this novel the most out of the five that have appeared so far in the series, probably because I thought that Amanda finally did what made sense to me in light of the decisions that she made, especially in Plain Return.  Although it is probably true that it was a good idea to return to the Beiler farm so that Isadora would have stability in her life, I did not agree with the way and the timing in which Amanda had left Alejandro.  It may sound a bit too traditional and non-egalitarian, but I thought that Amanda had given Isadora a higher priority than Alejandro when she decided to leave him midway through the South American tour, especially against his wishes for her to remain with him.  Even though Alejandro's suggestion of securing a nanny for Isadora was an unpleasant idea for Amanda, it would have kept the family together for the remaining three weeks of the tour, which isn't really that long, in my opinion.  It would have bought them more time to really think about what they would do as a family, for the care of Isadora, and for the unpleasantness that Amanda faced from Alejandro's rabid female fans.  At the end of Plain Return, when Amanda realizes that Alejandro might walk out of their marriage, she is willing to return to the tour with a nanny.  However, by this time, he has already decided to set her free from his complicated lifestyle, ironically, because he now thinks that if he truly loves her, he should let her go so that she can decide how she wants to live.  Unfortunately, he seems to believe that this means steering her back into the Amish life.  Really, these two need to talk to each other and to listen to each other before jumping quickly into unwise decisions...but that would leave us without Plain Choice to read, eh?  So, I won't tell you what Amanda decides to do; you'll have to read it for yourself. 

I loved all the covers for the recent releases of the books in the series, but I thought that the cover for Plain Choice was really fitting.  Alejandro is depicted with his right hand twisting his wedding band on the left hand, representing his choice of whether to continue with the marriage or to divorce Amanda.  Amanda is depicted in her plain dress, but with her kapp in her hands, representing her decision of whether or not to leave the Amish world. The image of the Eiffel Tower represents the European tour that Alejandro is on, and the farm represents the Beiler farm where Amanda and and Isadora are staying at. 

It was interesting to read of Alejandro's thoughts about his love for Amanda and how he viewed their marriage.  Over the course of the series, I felt that he was actually quite lenient with her when it came to their separations.  Amanda appeared to be to one who instigated most of these, placing her insecurity over Alejandro's clawing female fans, her family, and Isadora above remaining with Alejandro, who always seemed to long for her to stay with him.  What I didn't like about Alejandro was that he acted disrespectfully toward Amanda in some of his business/career dealings, especially where they made her lose face before others.  For example, I really wasn't impressed when he used footage of her without her consent on a tour in Plain Change, which made her look jealous of other women, or when he used photos along with false stories in order to circumvent the media interest in the appearance of Isadora in Plain Return.  Knowing and loving Amanda has changed Alejandro, although by the end of Plain Choice, I'm still not certain about how far the changes reach in his life beyond his relationship with her and their family.  The novel doesn't really address how far the lordship of Christ extends into his life, although he seems to acknowledge His presence more.

As in the previous books, starting with Plain Change, we have glimpses into Amanda's and Alejandro's intimate moments, or rather the moments leading up to those exchanges.  While there are no overt descriptions of them actually having sex, I still felt as if I were intruding in their privacy. 

I would not consider Plain Choice to be a stand alone book.  The novel does resolve many of the plot threads that started in the previous books in the series.  In my opinion, out of the five books, this one seemed to have the most overt references to faith beyond contrasting the worlds and practices of the Englische and the Amish.  The series also gives an interesting view into the entertainment world that Alejandro inhabits.  I liked reading the series, and have enjoyed following the love story of Amanda and Alejandro.


Disclaimer:  I received an e-copy of Plain Choice by Sarah Price from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine.

Review: Plain Return by Sarah Price

Plain Return is the fourth installment of the Plain Fame Series by Sarah Price.  It opens just a few weeks after Plain Again which ended with the protagonists, Amanda and Alejandro, reuniting and celebrating the New Year in New York together after being apart for weeks.  Amanda's sister, Anna, and Anna's new husband, Jonah, have now taken over in managing the family farm and are able to care for Amanda's father who has been recovering from a stroke.  Alejandro, also known as Viper, a famous hip hop artist, is about to embark on his South American tour, and wishes to take Amanda along, not only as a travelling companion, but also to participate in his concerts on the tour.

During the South American tour, Amanda finds it difficult to adapt to Alejandro's life when he is Viper.  She is beginning to see how much calculation goes into building Viper's brand, a concept that she has difficulty in initially understanding.   Because of her love for Alejandro and his wishes for her to be part of his world, she tries her best to be supportive of his work, even though she is uncomfortable with the revealing clothes, the suggestive dancing, and the female fans who throw themselves at Viper.  More tension is introduced between her and Alejandro when his promiscuous past catches up with the present.  Isadora, the five year old child he had out of wedlock through a one night stand, enters his life.  Her mother is dead, and her grandfather is no longer able to care for her because he is dying.  If Alejandro and Amanda do not assume responsibility for her, she will be taken to an orphanage.   

How will Amanda's and Alejandro's marriage survive all the stressors that are acting upon it?  Will Amanda adapt to things that she is uncomfortable with so that she can support Alejandro when he is Viper?  Can she shrug off the attention that Alejandro receives from his more enthusiastic female fans?  Can Amanda ignore the paparazzi and gossipy tabloids that present lies about the relationship between her and Alejandro?  What will the two of them decide to do with Isadora?  What if they both have different ideas on what should be done with Isadora? 

I found that there was more mentioned about Amanda's private relationship with God in Plain Return than in previous books in the Plain Fame series.  We are told that she spends a lot of time in prayer and devotions with the Lord, especially when she is not able to spend time with Alejandro, which happens much of the time when he is on tour.  I can recall more specific prayers that she makes in this novel.  However, as in previous novels, we don't really get a chance to read or hear any specific prayers that she may make for guidance from the Lord over important decisions that will have a huge impact on her marriage to Alejandro. 

In Plain Return, Amanda has also come to realize that Alejandro may make professions of being Catholic, but has shown very few signs of living a life of spiritual devotion.  She also can see that he may be too caught up in the pursuit of material things, with his love of luxury, his eye for every possible business opportunity, and his desire for the protection of Viper's brand.  In this novel, Alejandro shows a more cold, calculating and manipulative side of himself.  He can still be a charmer and shows his romantic side with Amanda, but the other half of his personality is more evident and present in Plain Return.  I had actually expected that this development of Alejandro's personality would surface earlier in the series, but as it is, it has come out in the story arc at this point.  Perhaps being on tour doesn't allow him much time to be anything other than the focused businessman who aims for success, a success that allowed him to rise above a life on the streets of Miami.  Unfortunately, some of the things that he does and allows bring conflict into his relationship with Amanda. 

I would not consider Plain Return to be a standalone novel, because it is a continuation of the story of Amanda and Alejandro which began in Plain Fame and which continued on in Plain Change and Plain Again.  Their story is still not yet finished; a fifth novel, Plain Choice, is going to be released at the end of March, 2016.



Disclaimer:  I received an e-copy of "Plain Return" by Sarah Price from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine.

Review: Plain Again by Sarah Price

Plain Again is the third installment of the Plain Fame Series by Sarah Price.  It is the immediate sequel to Plain Change which left the newlywed protagonists, Amanda Beiler Diaz and Alejandro (Viper) Diaz, facing forces that threaten their union just weeks into their marriage.  Alejandro, a hip hop superstar, had plans for taking Amanda along on his tour.  These plans have come to naught when Amanda returns to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to aid her Amish family in a crisis.   Her father had suffered a stroke that leaves him unable to take care of the family's farm. 

Amanda misses Alejandro dearly, but finds that she has missed the Amish life while she had been away for those short weeks.  However, at the same time, she realizes that she has changed too.  Even though she welcomes the familiarity of the simpler Amish way of living, she now views some parts of her Amish upbringing to be rigid and unaccepting.  It also stings her to find that her people regard and treat her as though she is an outsider to the community because she has chosen to marry Alejandro and not be baptized into the Amish church.  Besides coping with the rejection from people who had previously accepted her, Amanda must deal with the paparazzi who have returned to disrupt the quiet life in Lititz, Pennsylvania.  Her Amish neighbours resent the intrusion from the outsiders and blame Amanda for it. 

Alejandro is finding it difficult to be on the road apart from Amanda.  He wants to show the world that he is happily married, but it doesn't take long for the paparazzi to discover that he and Amanda are not together and the rumours begin to swirl about a troubled marriage.  It doesn't help that his manager, Mike, and a segment of Viper's fans prefer the previous bad boy persona that Alejandro portrayed to the public before his marriage to Amanda.  Will Amanda's and Alejandro's marriage survive the separation and the threats that rise up against their marriage?

I found the spiritual journeys for Amanda and Alejandro to be rather interesting.  In this novel, Amanda recognizes things that are culturally Amish but that may not necessarily be connected to a life saving faith.  Amanda also sees God acting in her relationship with Alejandro, but Amanda's sister, Anna, still asks her a significant question:  where God is in Amanda's life?  This was a rather puzzling question, because it does seem as if God is moving in the background.  However, while reading the books in the series, I have wondered how much Amanda has actually prayed to God for guidance over what to do.  It seems to me that she didn't really ask Him for direction over what she should have done when faced with the intrusion of the paparazzi in the first book, Plain Fame.  It didn't appear as if she asked God for guidance as to whether or not she should have left Lititz with Alejandro, or whether or not she should have married him.  I don't think that she prayed about separating from Alejandro so soon into their marriage even though she is doing a good thing in helping her parents and sister.  Perhaps it was meant for the reader to understand that Amanda did in fact pray about these decisions, but so far, it seems as if she decided these things on her own or got swept along by the circumstances into her present situation.  Perhaps, by the grace and mercy of God, things will work out well for Amanda and Alejandro, even though they didn't consult much with Him over what to do. 

As for Alejandro, I still think of him in the same way as I had while I was reading the previous two novels in the Plain Fame series:  it feels as if he knows of Jesus, but I'm not convinced that he *knows* Jesus.  He seems to be a nominal Christian, and there are still major areas of his life that could use Jesus' touch in it, especially in the content of his risqué songs and videos.  If Alejandro is, in fact, a saved individual, then what he really needs to do is to get all of his life under the influence of Jesus.  Maybe he needs more time to grow as a follower of the Lord.  I hope that as the series unfolds, the details of whether he truly knows Jesus will become more clear.

I like Alejandro.  As I mentioned in a previous review of the Plain Fame series, he is quite a romantic man.  Alejandro wants to be better man because of Amanda.  He isn't happy about the separation between Amanda and himself, but he tries to show that he supports her decisions.  He hires a farm worker to assist on Amanda's parents' farm and a nurse to help care for her father. When the two of them are able to reunite, he pulls out all the stops to show Amanda how much he loves her.  They are married now, and I didn't comment about their marriage in the review that I wrote for Plain Change because I thought that it would have been too much of a spoiler.  Their intimate moments are not explicit, but the times leading up them...well,...sometimes I felt like looking away, because I felt as if I were intruding in private encounters only meant to be shared between the two of them. 

I would not consider Plain Again to be a stand alone book, although it probably could do so just a *little* more successfully than Plain Change would.  The conclusion of Plain Again has a satisfactory ending, if one decides to stop reading the series at this point; for a number of years, only the Plain Fame, Plain Change, and Plain Again had been published.  However, Plain Return, and Plain Choice, the fourth and fifth novels of the series, have been released during the past few months.  There are still some loose plot threads that haven't been resolved yet, and I still feel invested enough in Amanda's and Alejandro's story to want to find out what happens to them.



Disclaimer:  I received an e-copy of "Plain Again" by Sarah Price from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in the review are mine. 

Review: A Table by the Window by Lawana Blackwell

I usually associate Lawana Blackwell with historical fiction, so it was a bit of a surprise to find out that she also wrote stories set in contemporary times. When I first started reading A Table by the Window, I thought that the novel was a contemporary romance, but it is more of a story about a wounded and lost sheep returning to the Shepherd's fold.  The wounded sheep in question is Carley Reed, a highschool English Literature teacher who suffered through a horrendous childhood with an alcoholic mother, and an abusive stepfather. Carley received the Lord as her Saviour as a child, but after experiencing harm at the hands of her stepfather, who was a church deacon, and being expected to act as a servant/slave in the home of the so called Christian foster parents, who took her in afterwards, Carley is no longer interested in spending time with a God Who would let evil things happen to good and innocent people or with His servants who act like hypocrites. 

In the first few chapters of the novel, Carley again experiences unfairness and injustice when the principal of her school refuses to support her against students who have clearly cheated.  This is because of the fear that influential relatives of those students would withdraw financial backing.  At the same time, Carley discovers that she has received an inheritance from her estranged deceased maternal grandmother.  With the knowledge of becoming debt free by claiming her inheritance, and because of her students' continued disrespectful behaviour, Carley finds herself taking a stand for herself and quits her position at the school, and makes her way to Tallulah, Mississippi to learn about her grandmother, her grandmother's sister, Helen, and Helen's family.  Beside being neglectful in her care for Carley, her mother had also failed to inform her about other relatives and Carley had lived for years without knowing of their existence.  The draw towards family, however unknown, is quite strong for Carley, who doesn't know who her birth father is, and whose only known relatives were her grandparents and mother who have already passed on.

Aunt Helen turns out to be a believer, and is a gentle witness to Carley who is reluctant to draw near to Him.  Carley tries to settle her grandmother's estate, intending to return to California, but finds herself resettling in Tallulah, and opening a restaurant instead of returning to teaching.  She even finds herself being romantically pursued by the local hero, Police Chief Dale Parker.  However, even in Tallulah, Carley continues to encounter people who appear to have been neglected and forgotten by the Lord through unjust circumstances.  One of these situations is the abandonment of a woman whose husband had disappeared with a known bad girl; neither the unfaithful husband or his paramour has been seen since then.  Another is the unsolved mystery of Pastor Stillman's wife who had died in a hit and run accident.  As the plot unfolds, it becomes apparent that someone wants to keep the mysteries unsolved.

The title of the novel refers to a request made by the daughter of the pastor's wife.  This young girl requests a table by the window at Carley's restaurant so that she can watch the people who walk by when she and her family are dining there.  I'm still trying to figure out what the significance of the title; is it alluding to watching all the people that are walking by in Carley's life, or is it referring to the question of whether the Stillman Family will eventually get justice if they sit back and watch the Lord do His thing?  I'm inclined to think that it is the latter, even though this novel seems to have a wide range of characters who pop in and out of Carley's life, with some being unpleasant, others being quirky curiosities, others whom Carley tries to help and give assistance to, and others who encourage Carley to believe that God actually cares.  

Carley is a likeable and sympathetic character.  Her story made me think about how God can use a person's past, no matter how horrible it is, to minister to other people who may be going through similar circumstances.  2 Corinthians 1:3b-4 says, "...the God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."  In this novel, Carley reaches out to Brooke Kimball, a teenaged girl who must cope with an alcoholic parent, just as Carley had with her mother. 

With respect to justice, this novel also addresses the question about whether God is just and whether He cares about those who belong to Him.  Will He allow the wicked to get away with their deeds?  According to His Word, we know that He will eventually judge everyone's deeds for all to see, even those done in secret.  2 Corinthians 5:10 says, "For we must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad."  Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."  How will these truths be reflected in the plot of "A Table by the Window?"

I think that waiting for God to carry out justice can be a hard thing to do, and sometimes believing that He can turn evil around so that good would result for those who love Him is difficult.  However, He did it for Joseph (Genesis 50:20) and He did it ultimately for us through Jesus.

A Table by the Window made me think, especially since it addressed hard questions about the goodness of God.  As I mentioned before, it didn't turn out to be the contemporary romance that I thought that I was going to read, and it certainly turned into an interesting piece of suspenseful fiction.

Review: Hidden Agenda by Christy Barritt

Hidden Agenda, by Christy Barritt, was released under Harlequin's Love Inspired Suspense line in March 2015.  I picked up this title because I liked Ms. Barritt's novel, Dubiosity, which I reviewed earlier in January of this year. 

The protagonists in Hidden Agenda are Bailey Williams, a home care nurse, and Ed Carter, a CIA agent. They are brought together by the death of Ed's father, when Ed returns to Smuggler's Cove, the island which his father retired to after a lifelong career with the State Department.  Bailey is less than impressed with the son who did not make it home in time for his own father's funeral.  She isn't even certain of Ed's identity, because Mr. Carter, Ed's father, did not keep any photos of Ed in his home.  She had been told that Ed is a lawyer, but he doesn't seem to behave or act like one.  Ed, who is convinced that his father's death was actually a murder, is suspicious of Bailey, wondering if she played any part in Mr. Carter's death.  One of Mr. Carter's friends had left Ed a cryptic message, but had died under mysterious circumstances, just as his father had. 

As the novel progresses, the attraction between Bailey and Ed grows, but several factors prevent them from trusting each other.  Ed needs to search through his father's belongings to find out if his dad was hiding classified information on his estate, and wonders why Bailey is remaining at Smuggler's Cove even though her duties towards his family are finished.   Bailey has been threatened several times by an unknown assailant who also promises to hurt and kill her relatives if she does not help him to recover secret information that Mr. Carter has hidden away on his estate.  She is also warned not to tell Ed about the threats, otherwise her family will be harmed.  Ed, who has been burned before by an ex-girlfriend who turned out to be a spy, senses that Bailey is holding back information from him and continues to wonder if she is working for the people that were responsible for getting his father killed, even though he gets to know her character better.  His mistrust doesn't encourage Bailey to ask him for help against the threats that she is facing in spite of her developing feelings for him.  Will Ed and Bailey be able to trust and help each other?  Will they find out who killed Mr. Carter, and will they find what he hid on his property?

I found this novel to be fairly suspenseful and fast paced.  There are secrets, danger, intrigue, espionage, death threats, and attempts against people's lives, unsuccessful, and successful.  I would also say that there seems to be no character that is wasted; each seems to play a fairly significant role in the plot, however minor it may be.  I thought that this made the novel tightly written and I appreciated the development of the plot and the economic use of the characters that were introduced in the story.  I did not guess the identities of the antagonists; I don't know if this was just laziness or fuzziness in my thinking, but when they were revealed, I had a moment of, "Yeah,...of course...that makes sense...," for one of them, and for the other, I appreciated the author's use of another character that had been fleetingly introduced earlier in the story and of whom I had not expected to hear about again. 

I enjoyed reading Hidden Agenda, and will probably read more of Ms. Barritt's work in the future.

Review: Ekaterina by Susan May Warren with Susan K. Downs

Ekaterina, by Susan May Warren with Susan K. Downs, is the first installment of the Heirs of Anton series.  Ekaterina is followed by Nadia, Marina, and Oksana, in that order.  The series follows several generations of a family of Russian background and their faith in God.  It is also about the faithfulness of the Lord.  I found the Heirs of Anton to be a bit different; in most series, the story is usually presented in forward chronological order.  In the Heirs of Anton, the story is covered in reverse chronological order, beginning with Ekaterina, which is set in the present day, and ending with Oksana, which is set in 1917, at the time of the Russian Revolution.   This reverse order allows us to know what the present concluding circumstances are for this family by the end of the first volume, but we are left with several mysteries and unanswered questions that are gradually revealed with each subsequent volume. 

Ekaterina (Kat) Moore, the namesake of the book's title, has come to Russia to discover her family's roots. She also brings along a key which was sent to her by a monk, Brother Timofea, who sent it to her from a monastery near Pskov, Russia.  She is hoping that he will be able to direct her in a search for her relatives so that she can discover her family tree and her heritage.  She had been orphaned as a child, and had been raised by her grandfather, a retired CIA spy who has also been very secretive over information about their family's past.  Unfortunately, as she passes through the metal detector at the customs booth at the airport, the key sets off the alarm, and she gets detained for questioning.

Captain Vadeem Spasonov, a FSB agent (a member of the international security force of Russia, the organization that succeeded the KGB) is at the airport watching out for Ivan Grazovich, an Abkhazian smuggler and terrorist who steals priceless Russian artifacts to finance the purchase of armaments.  When he finds Grazovich, he notices that the terrorist has been conversing with Kat, and the FSB agent's suspicions of Kat being a mule are raised when she sets off the alarm.  He brings her to an interrogation room, but she escapes when one of Grazovich's moles in customs sets her free before Vadeem clears her. 

Vadeem tracks Kat down, intending to deport her, but before he can take her back to the airport, she is mugged and her key is stolen.  The longer Vadeem speaks to and interacts with Kat, the more he is convinced that she is just an innocent tourist, although his initial suspicions of her are not entirely quenched.  His concern for her safety has been set off by the suspicious events of her "accidental" meeting with Grazovich and the targeted theft of her key.  He is right to be concerned; Kat's life is endangered even though she has lost the key. The thieves want more than what they have already taken, but Vadeem cannot convince Kat to leave Russia.

Kat refuses to leave before she finds the answers to her questions about her heritage; she wants to find out who she is, where she comes from, and to whom she belongs to.  Vadeem, on the other hand, knows about the risks that come from wanting too much to belong; the mistakes of his youth had led to consequences that have left him too angry and ashamed to be on speaking terms with the Lord.  Will Kat be able to find out her family's history and figure out who she is?  Why was Kat's key stolen? What connection does the key have with Kat's family?   Who is Anton Klassen, and what exactly is his connection to Kat?  What material and spiritual legacies did he leave for his descendants and heirs, and how have these affected their lives?  Will Vadeem be able to protect Kat from those who are trying to harm her?  Will his heart survive Kat's departure if he can get her safely out of Russia?  Will Vadeem come to terms with the tragic circumstances of his youth and reconnect with the Lord?  As I mentioned before, even though this novel provides many answers that are revealed by the conclusion of Ekaterina, there are enough hints of mysteries still yet to be unraveled and uncovered in the following volumes of the series. 

I know very little about what law enforcement is like in Russia, but Ekaterina did not seem too different from other novels that I have read involving characters in law enforcement set in the United States (e.g. some Love Inspired Suspense titles).  The way that FSB was depicted seemed similar in tone to stories that I've previously read with characters in the FBI or the U.S. Marshals.  What made Ekaterina feel a bit different for me are the flashbacks that Vadeem had of his family experiencing persecution for being believers.  I feel blessed to live in a country, which, at this present time, allows its citizens the freedom to worship God. 

As for the spiritual conflicts in the book, Kat needs to realize that her life only needs to be defined by Christ alone in spite of all the pesky unknown details.  Vadeem needs to come to terms with the mistakes that he made in his past, come back to the Lord and identify himself with Him.  Personally, I feel very strongly about the point that the author is making about how it is enough to identify ourselves with the Lord.  In Him, we discover who we truly are.  In Him, we find forgiveness, acceptance, security, belonging, and purpose.  In Him, we are beloved children of God.

I enjoyed the romance in Ekaterina, although one week is a pretty narrow time frame for Vadeem to fall deeply in love.  However, it's possible that adrenalin inducing situations can hype up romantic attraction.  Vadeem is an interesting romantic figure.  For a former special ops soldier, he seemed to be quite a strong yet vulnerable man.  I liked Kat for her gutsy determination and faith in the Lord.  The novel also tosses in the reunion of two long lost lovers who had been tragically separated for many years,  but I won't reveal who they are.

I found Ekaterina to be interesting and am looking forward to finding out what happens in the rest of the Heirs of Anton series.




 

Review: Hurricane Allie by Rachel Hauck

Hurricane Allie, a cute romantic novella by Rachel Hauck, seems to be a title that reveals a bit of a pun where the story is concerned.  There is an actual hurricane named Allie, which appears in the book, and there is our female protagonist, Allie Seton, who turns into a bit of a furious hurricane herself when unexpected obstacles such as the genuine Hurricane Allie pop up and threaten to scuttle her wedding.

The story is set in Florida, which faces the seasonal threat of hurricanes.  Allie and Kyle, her groom, wait with baited breath to find out whether the hurricane's path will bring it towards their location, or if it will head elsewhere, but no plans are made to postpone the wedding to a later date.  On top of that, Kyle's architectural office is offered a big break; a firm in New York is interested in Kyle's designs for a development, and it wants Kyle to fly up to New York to represent his company.  Unfortunately, this trip is to take place on the week before the wedding.

Disaster strikes and Hurricane Allie (the storm) becomes a very real threat in keeping the wedding from taking place. As people in Florida begin to take measures to take shelter or flee from its path, our heroine loses access to her dress, the caterers and the venue.  Allie is confronted with the situation of letting go of the wedding that she had carefully planned for.  In addition to losing the trappings of the wedding celebration, havoc in flight schedules results with grounded, redirected, and delayed flights.  Will Kyle be able to fly back to Florida in time for the wedding?

The question that runs through the story is whether Allie simply wants the wedding of her dreams, or if she wants to be married to Kyle himself.  He is determined to return to Florida by the date of the wedding, but will there be a wedding taking place at all?

I found it interesting to read of Allie's struggles in accepting the situation that was unfolding before her eyes.  I could imagine how difficult it was for her to let go of all the hard work that she did in putting together her dream.  I also could also feel her distress in trying to figure out whether she really wanted to get married or if she really wanted to marry Kyle.  On Kyle's part, he is dying to know if Allie truly wants him, or just the wedding, since all he can hear from her is that they might lose the vendors and the venue because of Hurricane Allie.

I liked that the characters prayed.  I also enjoyed reading about how one of the characters felt the pleasure of the Lord after a decision was made in accepting a gift from someone who wanted to help in this wedding disaster.  The story reminded me of Proverbs 16:9 which says, "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." This was certainly the case for Allie Seton in Hurricane Allie.

 

Review: Secretly Yours by Valerie Comer

Secretly Yours, a novella by Valerie Comer is the story of Lindsey Solberg, a chef who has returned to her hometown of Riverbend after spending a decade away from home.  She has returned home to be a support to her teenaged sister, Madison, after the passing of their mother.  Madison still lives with her father, Lindsey's stepfather, whom Lindsey considers to be a less than ideal parent.  Madison somehow railroads a reluctant Lindsey into catering the fundraising banquet that the local church youth group is hosting. 

Participating in the fundraising efforts becomes more awkward for Lindsey when she realizes that she will need to work with the youth pastor, Nick Harrison, a guy who Lindsey had a crush on during their high school days, but who had hurt her deeply in the days before he became a believer.  In the time that Lindsey and Nick have been apart, Nick has come to own a saving faith in the Lord, but has never forgotten about her or the humiliation that he put her through when they were younger.  Now, Lindsey won't give him the time of day; she is skeptical of whether he has truly changed, even though he has become a brother in Christ.  Nick decides to embark on a campaign of being her Secret Admirer, hoping to win her over anonymously at first with notes and gifts, and then eventually revealing himself to her. 

On first glance, the story seems to be about Lindsay's need to forgive Nick, and Nick's need for Lindsay's forgiveness.  However, as the plot unfolds, we find out that Lindsey has issues with seeing herself as she is: a person who is deeply loved by God.  Now that Nick is trying to court her, she becomes aware that he has surpassed her in his walk with the Lord, while her own faith has become unsteady.  Nick, on the other hand, must hold back his desire for a romantic relationship with Lindsey until things are right between her and the Lord. 

It was interesting to read about Lindsey's struggles in her faith and her difficulties in seeing herself in the way that the Lord does.  It gave the novella a little more heft in its content.  I liked the character of Nick.  I'm a sucker for men with characters of strength and patience who have had long standing crushes, as long as they don't act like out of control Neanderthals when it appears that they might possibly win the objects of their affections.   

I found it a bit amusing to read the brief author notes at the beginning and end of the story where she supplies trivia unique to British Columbia and Canada, the province and country in which the novella is set.  It's true that knitted stocking caps are referred to as "tuques" (this may be familiar to people who are acquainted with Bob and Doug McKenzie of the Great White North comedy segments that used to air on SCTV).  British Columbia does have a graduated driver's licensing program.  I'm still trying to figure out which existing towns and cities that exist in British Columbia that Ms. Comer used as possible models for Riverbend and Castlebrook, the fictional towns mentioned in the story.  It was a novel experience for me to read something that is set in an area that I am familiar with.  This was a nice story and I enjoyed reading it.






 

Review: Undeniably Yours by Becky Wade

Becky Wade's Undeniably Yours is a novel about a rich girl who meets a poor boy.  More than wealth is separating them; the stigma of boss and employee connecting romantically with each other is a source of concern for the two of them. 

Meg Cole is under a lot of stress.  With the passing of her father, she has become the head of the family business, Cole Oil, and numerous other business endeavors.  Meg is no business woman.  She had been happily working as a museum curator in Tulsa, returning to Texas only because of her family obligations.  She is trying to reduce the scope of her responsibilities so that she can concentrate on Cole Oil, and this means that she must lay off people and close down or sell the other businesses.  One of these is Whispering Creek Ranch.  Bo Porter is in charge of the ranch which is located on the family estate.

Bo, an ex-marine, is the manager of the horse ranch, and knows that Meg means to get rid of it.  He persuades Meg to give him six months to turn the business around so that it becomes profitable.  He knows that Meg has every intention of closing the place down, even after the six months are up.  He is also aware of the attraction between Meg and himself, but refuses to use it to convince Meg to keep the ranch operational.  In the meantime, Meg becomes aware that spending time with Bo gives her peace from all the turmoil from the other areas of her life which threaten to overwhelm her.  She wonders at the attraction between them, but is reluctant to act on it because of a previous relationship that causes her to mistrust all eligible men and her own judgment about people.  Bo slowly chips away at that distrust; however, circumstances arise that causes Meg to question whether Bo is using her for her money, just as the person from her previous relationship had.      

I loved this story.  It was romantic.  Bo is sigh worthy material.  The man is honest, honourable, handsome, and besides being a horse whisperer, he can also charm crying babies.  Becky Wade writes with humour in her style.  The babysitting episode made me smile.

I also liked that both protagonists were believers who earnestly wanted to listen to and follow God.  I found it interesting that Meg knew a fair bit of Scripture about her identity in Christ, and was able to see Bo as an equal, disregarding how the rest of the world saw the disparity in their socio-economic circumstances.  However, she wasn't able to translate that knowledge of how God saw her into accepting herself; she seemed to be constantly insecure about her looks, body image, and abilities.  As a female who is no longer in the bloom of my youth, I can relate to the struggle that Meg has in seeing herself as an acceptable person in a society that prizes physical attractiveness and worldly success as high measures of worthiness.

Undeniably Yours is the first installment of the Porter Family saga. The following two novels in the series, Meant to Be Mine, and A Love Like Ours, covers the stories of Bo's brothers, Ty, and Jake, respectively.

Review: Her Stolen Past by Lynette Eason

Her Stolen Past is a Love Inspired Suspense novel written by Lynette Eason.  The novel is about Sonya Daniels, a hospice nurse who has a mystery to solve.  While going through the personal effects of her late mother's home, she finds a birth certificate for a baby who had been kidnapped but never found.  Brandon Hayes is a police detective who also works as an investigator for Finding the Lost, a private agency.  He is hired by Sonya to find Heather Bradley.  As Sonya and Brandon attempt to uncover the mystery of the missing child, their lives are endangered, and it becomes obvious that someone doesn't want Heather Bradley to be found.

Sonya, the daughter of a pastor and his wife, has her reasons for wanting to find out what happened to the Heather.  Without finding out the truth, there will be a cloud of uncertainty over her family's past. 

Having his life threatened has made Brandon more determined to discover why someone wants to keep Heather Bradley hidden.  However, the more time he spends with Sonya, the more he falls in love with her, even though he knows that it is unprofessional to get into a relationship with a client.  He's also gun shy about getting into a relationship with a woman since he was previously burned by his ex-fiancée.  There's something about Sonya that makes him reconsider his thoughts about women, though, and he becomes interested in the idea of developing something with her, if only they can keep themselves safe from the deadly danger that results from their search for Heather.

In the past, I've found Lynette Eason's books enjoyable to read.  This one was definitely filled with suspense and mystery.  This novel also tossed in the issue of forgiveness; Brandon's character needed to come to a place where he could forgive the people who had hurt him in the past.  The discussion of forgiveness by the characters and the resolution seemed a bit stilted and sudden, but I think that it may be due to the constraints of the smaller size of this kind of novel as compared to ones that are longer.  Brandon's forgiveness of the people who hurt him took place over two months, but only over five pages in the book.  I think that a longer novel would have given the forgiveness storyline a bit more developmental room to feel more natural.  As it is, I'm pleased to read about a spiritual issue in addition to the suspenseful storyline. 

Besides the tackling of a spiritual topic in this novel, I felt that there was something else different about Her Stolen Past as compared to other Love Inspired novels that the author had written.  The first few chapters really drew me in with the mystery and plot development of the story because it starts off with a bang; Sonya is in danger of getting shot by a sniper.   The danger continues in the book, but after a few chapters in, something changed in the writing style, although the pacing continued to move quickly.  I'm still trying to decide if it was just a reflection of the character of Brandon with his aloof, no-nonsense, keep-to-the-point speech that gave a simpler and plainer feel to the story telling, or if the cause was due to something else.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the rest of novel; it kept my interest right to the very end.  I loved the character of Sonya; she was a strong woman who stayed true to her faith in the Lord in spite of the tumult that was brought into her life because of her search for answers.  I also liked that she stuck to her principles, even though it meant sacrificing the possibility of a relationship with Brandon. 

Her Stolen Past is the final installment of Lynette Eason's "Family Reunion" Series. 

Review: Dubiosity by Christy Barritt

Dubiosity.  Definition:  doubt, uncertainty. 

It is also the name of Christy Barritt's novel which is published by Waterfall Press.

Savannah Harris is an ex-investigative journalist and ex-pastor's wife who is presently working as a textbook editor.  She is filled with doubt in many areas of her life because of the tragedy that resulted from digging too deeply into secrets that certain people wanted to keep hidden.   As a result, she lost her baby daughter, her husband, her journalistic fervor, and her faith.  Now a childless widow, her investigative abilities are called upon again when a dying migrant farm worker requests her presence at his deathbed and tells her that her that he was murdered.   He utters the name of a prominent business man, the owner of a local farm, but without any explanation before he passes on.  Savannah cannot believe her ears and is reluctant to look into the matter.  However, with the disappearance of three more migrant workers and the mysterious attack upon the migrant workers' advocate, Marti, who happens to be Savannah's best friend, Savannah can no longer ignore that something illegal and dangerous is happening to the migrant workers at the farm where they work.  It becomes more apparent that the threat is real when Savannah discovers flattened pennies in locations connected to the migrant workers who have died or disappeared, and then in the presence of her own home.

Clive Miller is doing a little bit of investigating of his own at the farm.  He is Savannah's new boarder, staying at the carriage house on her property while he tries to discover who murdered his wife six years before in the Cape Thomas area.  He has a tight timeline; he has other obligations that require him to be elsewhere in a short while, and there is also the danger that people will find out who he really is before he gets the information that he wants.  When Savannah is threatened in her home, Clive offers his help.  Their attraction to each other grows as they spend time with each other, both helping each other in investigating the happenings at the farm.  However, Clive is a believer and Savannah is filled with doubt about the existence of God since He allowed such horrible tragedy into her life.  She still feels guilty about her past actions which led to the deaths of her husband and child.   Clive, on the other hand, must keep his motives for finding out who murdered his wife as a means of redemption, rather than for revenge and retribution.

The stakes are raised when their adversary explodes Savannah's car, in an effort to deter her from continuing on with her investigations.  The murderer of Clive's wife leaves behind a necklace to convey the message that someone knows who Clive really is, and also to gloat about her murder.  Savannah finds out Clive's true identity.  Will she be able to figure out who is responsible for the deaths, kidnappings, and attacks in the Cape Thomas area?  Is it Clive?  Is it the farm owner?  Is it one of the migrant workers?  Or is it someone else entirely?

"Dubiosity," is an apt title for this book.  Savannah is filled with doubt about the existence and goodness of God.  She is doubtful about whether she can use her journalistic gifts for good since it had resulted in so much pain and death for her personally.  She is doubtful about whether or not the migrant worker's death was murder.  She is doubtful about whether the farm owner could be guilty because she perceives him to be a good man.  She is doubtful about Clive once she finds out who he really is, even though she has been able to get a good gauge of his character after spending time with him. 

However, Savannah does come to a place of restored faith in God, when she finds that she can rely only on Him to get her out of the danger that she is in.  She confesses that though she had believed in His existence before, she did not have a relationship with Him and that she finally wanted to be His disciple, using her gifts for God instead of using them for other reasons, purposes, or idols.  In this spirit, I found that the Scripture that is inscribed at the start of the book to be totally appropriate.  It reads:  Stop doubting and believe. - John 20:27.  This is necessary for Savannah to break through in her struggle with the Lord, and also in how she sees herself, her talents, and her future.  She needs to believe in the existence and goodness of God.  She also needs to see that without God, she can do nothing (see John 15:5).  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Dubiosity captured my attention from beginning to end.  As the novel unfolded, I was able to cross a few candidates off from the "Guilty" list, but I still went back and forth for a while.  There is a number of characters that I have not mentioned in this review who were possibilities as the mastermind behind the dark activities in Cape Thomas.  I was pretty much kept in the dark until the end, and even then, because of what happened, I was unsure until the heroine was able to wrangle the confession out of the guilty party.  This was a great romantic suspense story that I feel honoured to have had the opportunity to read.

Disclaimer:  I received an e-copy of "Dubiosity" from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine.

Review: Her Montana Cowboy by Valerie Hansen

A few years ago, Harlequin's Love Inspired line started running multi-month continuities.  For its regular line, the continuity would run from July to December, and for the Love Inspired Suspense line, the continuity would run from January to June.  There is usually one book that is published each month for the continuity, resulting in six episodes.  A mystery is also spread out throughout the books, which is resolved in the final installment.  In the meantime, a person following the continuity will read about the romances of six different couples, where each couple is featured in their own book/episode.  The most recent offering for the regular line is titled "Big Sky Centennial," which is based on the hundredth year celebrations of Jasper Gulch, Montana.  

Harlequin offered a sneak peek into the series by offering a free novella for Kindle, titled, "Montana Reunion," which is also written by Valerie Hansen, the author of the first book in the Big Sky Centennial continuity.  It has been on Amazon since July, and is likely a marketing tool for attracting attention for the series.  I am wondering if its status will change by the end of the year, because this is the last month for the continuity.

When I first saw the Kindle offering, I thought that Harlequin was actually offering the first book of the series online, so when I was at Walmart in August checking out the Love Inspired titles, I was puzzled about the cover for, "Her Montana Cowboy," which was July's offering.   I knew that there were two people on the cover for, "Montana Reunion," but there was only one extremely handsome cowboy on the book that I was staring at in the store.  After checking on Wifi, I realized that they were two entirely separate books, both written by Valerie Hansen.  Walmart had just brought back its marketing tool of buying three Harlequin books for $15, versus $6.75 for one (yes, we have higher prices in Canada), and besides having "Her Montana Cowboy," on the shelf, there was also August's "Her Montana Sweetheart," (the second installment) by Ruth Logan Herne available.  That was the moment when I decided that I would swallow the bait and start buying the books for the continuity.   That impulsive decision to buy three books at once was helped along by the fact that I was going to be stranded on a campground with no transportation for the following six days.   The funny thing is that I actually read the third book which was unrelated to the series while I was stuck on the campground, and did not get around reading any of the Big Sky books until much later.  In fact, I just finished reading, "Her Montana Cowboy," a few days ago. 

The handsome cowboy on the cover of "Her Montana Cowboy," is Ryan Travers, a rodeo star who breezing through the circuit as it passes through Jasper Gulch just in time for the start of Big Sky's Centennial.  He connects with Julie Shaw, a sheep farmer in the middle of cattle country.  Her business is growing, but it is still rather small; she relies on the good graces that are extended towards her by her influential father, Jackson Shaw, a ranch owner who also happens to be the mayor of Jasper Gulch.  Daddy wants to see all his children married and settled nearby; he has been trying to match Julie up with a well-to-do banker who doesn't spark her interest.  Mayor Shaw is less than impressed with the itinerant cowboy who doesn't have any roots to speak of.  Even Julie has her qualms about Ryan; although she recognizes the attraction between them, Ryan has turned away from God due to a crisis in his past, and she knows that she cannot go forward in a relationship with him when he doesn't hold much stock in believing in God.  However, the light that Julie brings into Ryan's life is so attractive.  The two of them can't seem to keep away from each other, even though Ryan has every intention to just keep things light and friendly so that there will be no hard feelings when he is ready to leave Jasper Gulch in a matter of weeks.  Will Ryan come back to God, and if he does, will he and Julie be able to make a relationship work, even though he is a travelling rodeo star?

In general, I find the Love Inspired books to be fairly light reads; I can finish them in about two hours, and they don't often inspire a lot of deep thought, but I wanted to comment about this particular book, because I found it to be a little bit different than the other books that I have read that were written by Valerie Hansen.  Most of the time, even though her Love Inspired titles are written with Christian characters, I have found her stories, to be just exactly that:  romances with Christian characters whose conflicts are centered on whether the couple in question will get together or not.  That is what I found happened in, "Montana Reunion."  However, in "Her Montana Cowboy," I was a bit more engaged in the faith conflicts that the characters experienced.  Maybe this is just because of the nature of this particular plot.  In this case, a serious believer realizes that she cannot be yoked to an unbeliever/backslider even though she is sliding into a relationship with him, and the backslider realizes that God is real and truly cares about him, and is not as distant as he thinks.

I liked the difference that I found in this particular novel as compared to what had happened in an earlier novel of Ms. Hansen's titled, "The Hamilton Heir."  In that novel, the hero is also a backslider, but his faith status is still unresolved and remains static by the end of novel.  The couple gets together and even discusses marriage, but we don't know for certain if he has come back to God, or if he is just starting to believe.  However, that novel was released over seven years ago, and in general, I've noticed changes in the content of what appears in the Love Inspired books since then.  There seems to be more of a trend towards an active practice of Christianity in the characters lives, as opposed to a cultural one, in which the tenets of the Christian faith might not necessarily be translated into active practice in the characters.  This is an improvement that I've appreciated over the years of reading from the Love Inspired lines. 

I'll close off by mentioning that the mystery that appears in the Big Sky Centennial series involves a missing time capsule that was supposed to have been opened at the town's big celebration at the start of the summer.  I'm guessing that the rest of the series will build upon this mystery about why the time capsule was stolen and by whom. 

July   Montana Reunion (prequel)
           Her Montana Cowboy  (1)
Aug.   His Montana Sweetheart (2)
Sept.  Her Montana Twins (3)
Oct.    His Montana Bride (4)
Nov.   His Montana Homecoming (5)
Dec.   Her Montana Christmas (6)

Review: Trading Secrets by Melody Carlson

This review is filled with spoilers in a fairly detailed summary and in my reflections upon reading the novel.
 

Trading Secrets, a young adult novel by Melody Carlson, is the story about Micah Knight, a seventeen year old, and Zach Miller, who have been penpals since they were both eleven.  Zach is Amish, while Micah has grown up in a modern, contemporary "English" (non-Amish) community.  However, the penpals have shared many things with each other over many letters, and Micah is grateful for Zach's friendship especially with the latter helping the former in matters of faith and through some dark times, especially when Micah's mother died. 

However, with spring break approaching, Zach writes and asks if he could visit and stay with Micah's family.  This presents a huge problem for Micah, because Zach has been completely unaware throughout their correspondence that Micah is actually a girl.  The book presents a plausible reason for this; our protagonists became penpals through a letter writing exchange between an Amish class and English class; however, Zach's teacher removed the photographs that had been attached to the letters from the English class.  With Micah's unusual name, it was not surprising that Zach assumed that Micah was a boy.  For all these years, Micah has not corrected him from that assumption, because of her fear that he would stop corresponding with her.

Micah wins a bit of a reprieve when Zach writes again, and informs her that his father requires his help to work on the family farm.  Since he cannot visit her, would she like to visit him on the farm and help him with the spring planting instead?

At this point in the novel, I could hear myself telling Micah to just not do it, but our intrepid teenage girl does!  She also visits Zach's family disguised as a boy, but that subterfuge does not last for very long.  On the very first day of the visit, after Zach's father conducts a devotional on the importance of honesty from the book of Proverbs, Micah reveals herself to be a girl, stating that she did so in order to meet Zach, because it was something that she had wanted to do for such a long time.  Zach does not handle this revelation very well; he is furious with Micah and tells her to leave. 

After revealing her secret, Micah tries to hop on the bus to return home, but due to circumstances, is not able to leave immediately, and is persuaded by one of Zach's sisters to stay with the Miller family until she can find her way home.

The rest of Micah's stay is like the reverse of watching "Amish in the City," the reality television show that depicts Amish youth experiencing rumspringa in an urban setting.   In Micah's case, she is now immersed in the Amish lifestyle.  Unfortunately, she does not find a friend with Mrs. Miller, Zach's mother, and is made to feel inadequate by Rachel Yoder, an Amish girl who hopes to catch Zach's eye.  Since Micah does not feel welcome in the Miller's house, she goes to help Zach and his father outside with the farm work.  As the days pass, she is able to mend bridges with Zach and eventually wins over Zach's father's respect for her willingness to do hard work.  Micah also learns that Zach's heart is not in working on the family farm; he loves working with and caring for animals instead.  Zach is also struggling with his family's expectations for him; they expect him to help with the farm and also to marry Rachel, but he doesn't have the desire to do either of these things.

Micah is finally able to leave Zach's community when her father, a pilot, comes by in his plane to take her home.  However, Zach also leaves with them, but realizes after a few days in the English world, that it would be difficult for an Amish person to survive there with limited skills and education.  However, during this time, he meets Micah's Uncle Brad, a veterinarian.  He returns home to his family for a season, but eventually returns to the English world, with the help of Micah's uncle, so that he can pursue his dream of becoming a vet.

Here's where I confess that I read this novel from the perspective of a mother who worries a bit about her children's safety especially if they would be staying overnight for a week at some stranger's place.  I probably wouldn't have allowed Micah to go alone on such a trip without having some previous personal contact with the family that she would stay with or without knowing that this family was screened in some sort of official capacity by an authority that I could trust.  But of course, in this story, Micah does not have a mother, and Micah's father seems to be a lot more relaxed about the whole matter with Micah visiting Zach than I would have personally felt comfortable with, even though Micah is 17 and already in her senior year of high school.  

I was also cringing at how Micah ended up stranded in Zach's community for the week, as she first missed the bus because she arrived too late for a return trip on that first day, and also when she ran out of funds later on and could not purchase the bus fare home.  She needed to wait until her father could fly out to pick her up, which took several days.  This is a bit foreign to my own experience of growing up. If I were Micah, at that age, my parents would have made sure that there were already contingency plans in place either to wire money or to retrieve me as quickly as possible should the need arise.  They would have definitely been more accessible for emergency contact than how Mr. Knight appeared in this story.

Having said that, I did think that it was still completely plausible for the plot to unfold as it did in Trading Secrets.  I could see and imagine a gutsy 17 year old acting as Micah did to fulfil her desire in meeting a boy that she had a crush on.  Micah's voice and thoughts sounded youthful, immature and impulsive enough to go ahead and carry out her plans even though the decision making and execution of those plans were a bit questionable. She is mature enough to realize that she is not in love with Zach, and I would say that this novel didn't really seem like much of a romance, even though Zach is pursued by Rachel.  Instead, the focus on the plot turns to the choices that Zach needs to make; will he remain with his Amish community or will he attempt to pursue his own dreams for a different future than the one his family expects for him to have?    

The novel ends with Micah and Zach remaining friends, but I wonder if Ms. Carlson will write a sequel if she hasn't already.  I  would love to find out what happens to Micah and Zach.  Micah seems to have a romantic attraction to Zach that she may not be quite ready to acknowledge, but Zach seems rather clueless to the interest of the females surrounding him.

I enjoyed reading this novel, and would probably consider reading more of Melody Carlson's work.

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of Trading Secrets from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine.


   


 

Review: Remember Love by Jessica Nelson

A few weeks ago, I inherited someone's cast off Android and he kindly installed a Kindle app on it.  Since then, I've gone a bit gung-ho in seeking free novels on Amazon to read.  Today, on the freebie list, I found, Remember Love, by Jessica Nelson which is part of the series, The Women of Manatee Bay.

The key verse that this novel revolves around is Isaiah 42:3, which says, "A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench:  He shall bring forth judgment to truth."

Katrina (Kitty) Ross and Alec Monroe have a long history together.  They had been childhood sweethearts, but Kitty stood Alec up at the altar on their wedding day, and Alec left town.  They are reunited ten years later when he roars back to Manatee Bay on his motorcycle.  The former wild boy is now a successful businessman and has returned to open a new business in his hometown, but is also hoping to sniff out information about Kitty.  When he finds out that she is one of the lessees in the building that he is buying, his interest in her picks up again, until he finds out that she had withheld knowledge of the existence of their now deceased son from him.  This has wounded him greatly because Kitty knew that if he had known about their son, he would not have abandoned them.  He had been abandoned by his own father as a child and would not have subjected his own child to the same fate.

Alec vacillates from wanting revenge against Kitty for hurting him in this way, to wanting her to be his wife.  He is also wanting to show the townspeople who had rejected him in the past that he has made something success out of himself.  Kitty, on the other hand, is the obvious bruised reed in this story. She has faced rejection and abandonment all of her life, from a father who walked out on her and her mother, from her mother who was not very loving towards Kitty, and from the deaths of her mother and her son, Joe, in a car accident. Kitty, who had become a Christian shortly after Joe was born, has been struggling with her faith since the deaths of Joe and her mother. Alec has become a believer during the past year, but he's still grappling with desires for vengeance.

Both of them can see that the other has changed greatly since they were youths, and are attracted to what each other has now become.   However, Kitty still has difficulty in trusting Alec, because he won't say aloud whether he loves her or forgives her of what she had done.  Alec is more of a man of action than of words; he doesn't know how to scale the walls around Kitty's heart. There comes a point in the story when the tables are turned; Kitty needs to forgive Alec for withholding information from her if there is any hope of reconciliation between the two of them. 

Much of this novel touches on the issue of forgiveness and the healing that can come when it is given.  There were a lot of people that needed to give forgiveness and a lot of people who needed to receive it in this story.  There was one point in the story that felt a little abrupt, and it was the revelation of the details surrounding the car accident that led to the deaths of Kitty's mother and Joe.  There was a little bit of foreshadowing of this, but I think that I would have liked a couple more hints because it did feel abrupt and sudden to me. However, once that portion of the plot was revealed, it led to quite an important development in the life of a minor character who had been kept hidden until this point, and also to Kitty, because it caused her to realize that it was possible for her to believe that Alec might be able to forgive her. I thought that this part was nicely done.  

I loved the line in which Alec thought that the Lord said to him, "I've made all things new, Son." Just reading that is like breathing in hope.  Alec really needed it at that point too. 

This was a good story. I hope to read more of the Women of Manatee Bay. 
      

Review: Never Like This (Revealing Book 2) by Rena Manse

Strong, wealthy, handsome, alpha male with a bad boy past?  Check.

Smart, intelligent, good humoured heroine who has several dark secrets of her own?  Check.

Christian romance?  Check.

Some hot kisses that left me fanning myself?  (Looks around furtively.)  Check.

Never Like This, by Rena Manse is an interracial Christian romance. It is the second book in the Revealing Series, but can be read as a stand alone book. 

Kavin Reigns is the 34 year old Chief Operations Officer of his family's cosmetic and fashion corporation, Revealing, which is primarily situated in America.  He's near the end of negotiations for a takeover of a smaller company in France when the representatives of the other company wish to renegotiate the terms. Kavin meets Sherri Harbor when he asks for her to join the team that arranged the takeover deal because she previously worked as a lawyer in France for five years before joining Revealing to work in its Foreign Relations Department.

They are instantly attracted to each other, but try to mask their interest from each other and from the rest of the world because of the differences in their positions in the company. Unaware of what the other is thinking, they both know that a romantic relationship between a boss and subordinate could potentially be disastrous for their work environment.  Kavin also wants to avoid being accused of sexual harassment.  Sherri views herself as damaged goods because of her past relationships.  However, the takeover deal requires that they work closely with each other, and they eventually reveal their interest to each other.  

There was an incident that happened earlier on in the novel in which Sherri was trapped in an elevator in Kavin's apartment building while she was on her way to deliver paper work to him.  It was used to build the romantic tension between the two of them, but I did get a moment of thinking that it was a bit too contrived and convenient for Kavin to be the shirtless knight in armour that rescues Sherri at that point (he had been exercising in his private gym).  However, if such a thing could happen in real life, one might think and consider that in the background, God could be orchestrating their meetings, contrived as it may appear in the novel. 

As for the interracial aspect of the story, I liked that it seemed to be more important to Kavin that Sherri was a believer. Besides worrying about being accused of sexual harassment, at some point in the story, he wonders if Sherri would ever consider dating a white man and he fears that she would reject him because he's not black.  As for Sherri, it appears that she has always pictured a black man as her Prince Charming, until she meets Kavin. As soon as they learn that their attraction is mutual, they are both open to exploring the possibility of a relationship.  However, as it grows, it seems to be that Kavin is the one who does more of the pursuing and is more open to revealing his secrets in order to win Sherri, than she is to him.  Her reluctance to be transparent with Kavin has less to do with race, and more to do with her woundedness in other areas of her life.

The novel is clean; however, the characters do share a few fervent kisses. Well, maybe they were quite passionate than just simply fervent. 

The characters take their time getting to know each other.  I've read some other reviews in which there were complaints about the length of time it took for the characters to get together, and perhaps the author could have trimmed a bit from the story to tighten it up, but I thought that it was okay.  Also, there are quite a few spelling errors, but I found the couple featured in this story to be extremely likeable.  I enjoyed this book.

Review: Persy and the Prince by Jane Myers Perrine

Persy and the Prince, by Jane Myers Perrine is being republished by Beyond the Page Publishing.  This novel was originally published by Avalon in 2003. I became interested in reading this because I enjoyed Ms. Perrine's regency, The Mad Herringtons, which was a delightful read. 

When Persy Marsh first meets Jordan Prince, a manager of a chain of upscale hotels, she is acting as a hotel's dog walker at their workplace, trying to prevent a dog from piddling onto Jordan's shoes.  He requests to see her in his office, officially to give her a piece of his mind, but he is so physically attracted to her that he asks her out on a date with dishonourable intentions.  Jordan starts moving too fast, and Persy puts the brakes on.  She admits to Jordan that she is also deeply attracted to him and that she also behaved a bit inappropriately, but didn't mean to carry on as far as she did.

They agree that they shouldn't see each other again, however, in the following days, they can't seem to keep away from each other at the hotel.  Persy seems to wear a few different hats at the hotel and assumes several different jobs there, so they frequently run into each other while she is acting as the housekeeping maid, waitress/server, lifeguard, and casino dealer.  For people who have decided to stay away from each other, they end up kissing each other a fair bit too.

Persy's name comes up in a letter requesting a meeting with the hotel administration about improving safety conditions for hotel employees between the building and the neighbourhood where they live.  This prompts Jordan to discover who and what Persy is: a caring neighbourhood organizer/reformer, educated at Stanford, who has a background in law, and who left the privileged society that Jordan is also a part of.  Persy intrigues and infuriates Jordan at the same time because of the attraction between them, and because she won't defer to his position in society or at the hotel.

As for Persy, she finds her attraction to Jordan to be problematic; she is afraid that he will tempt her to leave the life that she has built for herself since she left her privileged background.  However, her previous life had been a source of unhappiness for her and she loathes the idea of returning to it.

When Persy is attacked on the pathway between the hotel and the section of town where many of the employees live, Jordan begins to spend quality time with her and starts to change, becoming less of a pompous jerk and becoming more conscious of the welfare of his employees.  Eventually, he realizes that he has fallen in love with Persy and desires a life with her, but she is not convinced that he can really love the person that she is now and not want to change her back into the type of person that she was before she got involved with the community that she lives with now.    

Parts of this novel were quite funny.  Persy is a bit of a smart mouth who ends up talking circles around Jordan.  I loved the bit where she was frustrated at her cleaning supply cart which she had christened, "Jordan."  Guess who was standing nearby when she cursed it by name? 

As for sex, there isn't any.  For a believing reader, that may come as a relief, but this is a secular type of novel.  Jordan enters into a relationship with Persy hoping that once he has her body, that he will get her out of his system.  He mentions to her several times that he wants to spend the night with her.  One thing that I had appreciated about him was that he let Persy go in that first date when she refused to go all the way with him.  Although he grows more marriage minded as the plot unfolds, he lets her know repeatedly that he's interested in her sexually, and she has to say no to him a few times.  It isn't mentioned overtly that Persy is a Christian, other than a mention of her Calvinist background.  In the story, as Persy realizes that she needs to make a decision about where she is going to go in her relationship with Jordan, it is implied that this decision will also involve a choice for her to become physically intimate with Jordan.

The book ends quite abruptly.  When I reached the end, I asked myself, "That's it?"  I would like to have known a little more about what happens to Persy and Jordan after the final scene.  They confess their love for each other, but we are left hanging about what will actually happen.  Will they get engaged and married?  We don't actually find out for certain.

I found Persy and the Prince to be just okay.  It's fairly clean, and there were a couple of thought provoking ideas through the challenges that Persy had to face, about waiting to have sex, and about needing to stop trying to please everyone else, and learning to do what is best for one's self.  It was a fairly light read that can be finished in a couple of hours. 


Disclaimer:  I received an e-copy of Persy and the Prince from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine.