Normally, I don’t do romance novels. While I believe that any story is made better with a dash of romance, mainlining the stuff’s not my bag. Which means I had some ambivalence when I picked up My Foolish Heart by award-winning author Susan May Warren. But since a writerly friend of mine recommended it, I figured it was worth a look.
In this, the fourth of Warren’s Deep Haven novels (“romance and adventure on Minnesota’s North Shore…”), we meet Isadora Presley, a young woman whose life fell apart when a horrific car accident took her mother’s life, sent her football coach father into the local care center as a quadriplegic, and left Issy the victim of PTSD. Three years later, no one in Deep Haven (except for Lucy, Issy’s loyal BFF) knows that agoraphobic Issy leads a secret life as the hostess of the nationally syndicated talk show, My Foolish Heart. She coaches listeners to hold out for their perfect “ten,” reminding them that their perfect match might be right next door. Except in her case, which she especially knows to be true when a new neighbor moves in—a man whose goal appears to take over her father’s position as the high school football coach. Instead, she falls for a caller to her show, whose humor, warmth and vulnerability completely win her heart—and leave her more certain than ever that true love could never come knocking on her own front door.
Warren is one of the most respected writing coaches in Christian fiction. (You can check out her website, My Book Therapy, linked to this blog.) And in this romance, I was pleased to see that she follows her own good advice, achieving the perfect balance of deft description, sparkling dialogue, and tension on every page. She never holds back a reveal, and as a result her plot ticks right along. While I can’t say that My Foolish Heart made me want to read more romance novels, I can say that Warren’s mastery claimed my respect and admiration. But for those who do love the genre, listen up: this novel’s for you.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
A Month of Summer, book review
For my taste, Lisa Wingate novels are hit and miss. While I admire this Christian novelist for her ability to cross over into the mainstream market, I find some of her novels anemic--the characters familiar, the plot predictable, the premise bland. Tending Roses, her 2001 debut with New American Library, comes to mind.
But this one’s different.
In A Month of Summer, we find Rebecca Macklin, a successful California attorney, reluctantly flying to Dallas, to the home of her father and her stepmother from whom she has long been estranged. Her father now suffers from Alzheimer’s, and her stepmother, Hanna Beth, has suffered a debilitating stroke, landing her in a nursing home and rendering her incapable of caring for her husband and her mentally-challenged son. That responsibility, at least temporarily, falls to Rebecca, who has left a score of her own problems at home. Hanna Beth, for her part, is just as unwilling to receive Rebecca’s help, but circumstances compel them to rely on each other. And as they do, the ghosts of old betrayals emerge, and the two women forge a new relationship, this one based on forgiveness and truth.
In A Month of Summer, I savored Wingate’s literary prose, which was often lyrical but not overblown. I appreciated her elegant but thorough narration, using just two point-of-view characters, Rebecca and Hanna Beth. In Rebecca, especially, I found a protagonist I could relate to. Even if her problems weren’t exactly mine, her fears and worries, and (I hope) her strength of character were ones I could identify with. I also liked Wingate’s premise and her plotting, which included a compelling beginning and enough surprises at the end to make for a very satisfying read.
All of which left me wishing for more novels of this caliber from Lisa Wingate.
But this one’s different.
In A Month of Summer, we find Rebecca Macklin, a successful California attorney, reluctantly flying to Dallas, to the home of her father and her stepmother from whom she has long been estranged. Her father now suffers from Alzheimer’s, and her stepmother, Hanna Beth, has suffered a debilitating stroke, landing her in a nursing home and rendering her incapable of caring for her husband and her mentally-challenged son. That responsibility, at least temporarily, falls to Rebecca, who has left a score of her own problems at home. Hanna Beth, for her part, is just as unwilling to receive Rebecca’s help, but circumstances compel them to rely on each other. And as they do, the ghosts of old betrayals emerge, and the two women forge a new relationship, this one based on forgiveness and truth.
In A Month of Summer, I savored Wingate’s literary prose, which was often lyrical but not overblown. I appreciated her elegant but thorough narration, using just two point-of-view characters, Rebecca and Hanna Beth. In Rebecca, especially, I found a protagonist I could relate to. Even if her problems weren’t exactly mine, her fears and worries, and (I hope) her strength of character were ones I could identify with. I also liked Wingate’s premise and her plotting, which included a compelling beginning and enough surprises at the end to make for a very satisfying read.
All of which left me wishing for more novels of this caliber from Lisa Wingate.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Talking to the Dead, book review
In her debut novel, Talking to the Dead, Bonnie Grove introduces Kate Davis, a twentysomething wife suddenly confronted with widowhood. Which is a situation terrible enough, but when Kate’s dead husband starts talking to her, she realizes that in addition to being mired in grief, she’s also crazy. In search of healing, she turns to one therapist after another, but none offer the cure she seeks. It’s the people she encounters along the way—free-spirited Maggie and kind-hearted Jack—whose gentle love eventually show her the way back to health and wholeness.
From its opening lines, I was drawn into Talking to the Dead. Narrator Kate Davis possesses the most appealing first-person voice in Christian fiction I’ve read since Dr. Dylan Foster in Melanie Wells’ The Day of Evil Comes series (also reviewed on this blog). With a writer’s admiration tinged with envy, I found myself reading, and then rereading lines like, Uncertainty crept up my spine and knocked on my skull. Other passages I read thinking, Did she really dare to say that…in CBA? You go, girl. (And you go, publisher David C. Cook, for daring to put it in print.)
Each page holds tension and layered subtexts, and Kate makes a memorable protagonist. Why? Well, in addition to a fresh narrator’s voice, Kate possesses qualities larger-than-life: She throws lasagna at her sister. She crashes her red Mazda into the car of her newfound friend. She punches her nemesis in the face and lands herself in the local psych ward. Unbelievable? You might think so, but not under Groves’ skillful hand.
And then there’s Kate’s inner conflict: Her husband’s dead, and he talks to her—which she likes because it soothes her grieving heart, but… her husband’s dead and he talks to her—which she doesn’t like because proves she’s crazy (right?). She wants her husband to keep talking and yet she wants him to stop. Two mutually exclusive goals—she can’t have them both. That’s inner conflict, and a memorable one.
There’s a lot to like here, and I did, thoroughly and without reservation…until the last quarter of the novel. Then, oddly, characters and plot began to feel familiar, predicable…cliché. The ending seemed rushed, lacking the wonderful textures of the first three hundred pages. The conclusion fell flat. However, despite the disappointing ending, Talking to the Dead remains a compelling read, and I look forward to more works of women’s fiction by this intriguing author.
From its opening lines, I was drawn into Talking to the Dead. Narrator Kate Davis possesses the most appealing first-person voice in Christian fiction I’ve read since Dr. Dylan Foster in Melanie Wells’ The Day of Evil Comes series (also reviewed on this blog). With a writer’s admiration tinged with envy, I found myself reading, and then rereading lines like, Uncertainty crept up my spine and knocked on my skull. Other passages I read thinking, Did she really dare to say that…in CBA? You go, girl. (And you go, publisher David C. Cook, for daring to put it in print.)
Each page holds tension and layered subtexts, and Kate makes a memorable protagonist. Why? Well, in addition to a fresh narrator’s voice, Kate possesses qualities larger-than-life: She throws lasagna at her sister. She crashes her red Mazda into the car of her newfound friend. She punches her nemesis in the face and lands herself in the local psych ward. Unbelievable? You might think so, but not under Groves’ skillful hand.
And then there’s Kate’s inner conflict: Her husband’s dead, and he talks to her—which she likes because it soothes her grieving heart, but… her husband’s dead and he talks to her—which she doesn’t like because proves she’s crazy (right?). She wants her husband to keep talking and yet she wants him to stop. Two mutually exclusive goals—she can’t have them both. That’s inner conflict, and a memorable one.
There’s a lot to like here, and I did, thoroughly and without reservation…until the last quarter of the novel. Then, oddly, characters and plot began to feel familiar, predicable…cliché. The ending seemed rushed, lacking the wonderful textures of the first three hundred pages. The conclusion fell flat. However, despite the disappointing ending, Talking to the Dead remains a compelling read, and I look forward to more works of women’s fiction by this intriguing author.
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