Wither

(Chemical Garden Trilogy, Book 1)

by Lauren DeStefano

YA Dystopian

Release Date: March 2011

Synopsis:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems.

Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape–before her time runs out?

My Thoughts:

To start: I love the cover. See how the little circles pull your focus to very specific things in the picture? Those things are very important, and tell you a lot about the story inside.

But, cover aside, what about the story itself?

Well, for a story where nothing much happens, it’s pretty darn compelling. I got halfway through the book before I realized, “wait a minute… it’s been 150 pages and all the main character has done is walk through her daily routine a few times and chat with the other wives… why am I still interested?!?!”

And honestly, I’m not sure. It takes quite awhile for the main character to decide to actually do anything about her situation, but when she does, it’s worth the wait. In the meantime, the interactions between the characters and the simple consequences of a wrong word spoken here, or a strange glance there, are enough to maintain a rather stressful level of tension throughout the narrative, even without much action.

In the end, the worldbuilding in this novel was better than in others I’ve recently read, and the slow reveal of the situation wasn’t as annoying as some others. I’d also say that, compared to the book Bumped, which has a similar premise, I found this story much smoother in terms of the way the fertility/life expectancy issues were introduced (review of Bumped forthcoming…).

Mind you, there are still plenty of questions left unanswered, and a number of bizarre issues not addressed (ie. when did society become okay with rounding up fertile young women and shooting them, if there’s a population crisis? and why are there orphans on the street if children are such a precious commodity?). If you can get past that, it’s a surprisingly good read, and I’m certainly looking forward to the second installment.

About the Author

Lauren DeStefano was born in New Haven, Connecticut and has never traveled far from the east coast. She received a BA in English from Albertus Magnus College recently, and has been writing since childhood. She made her authorial debut by writing on the back of children’s menus at restaurants and filling up the notepads in her mom’s purse. Her very first manuscript was written on a yellow legal pad with red pen, and it was about a haunted shed that ate small children.

Now that she is all grown up (for the most part), she writes fiction for young adults. Her failed career aspirations include: world’s worst receptionist, coffee house barista, sympathetic tax collector, and English tutor. When she isn’t writing, she’s screaming obscenities at her Nintendo DS, freaking her cats out with the laser pen, or rescuing thrift store finds and reconstructing them into killer new outfits.

Radio Shangri-La:

What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth

by Lisa Napoli

Travel / Memoir

Release Date: February 2011

Dissatisfied with her life as a radio journalist, Lisa Napoli takes a stranger at a party up on his random offer: to visit Bhutan and lend some of her expertise to setting up the country’s first youth-oriented radio station, KuzooFM. At the time, Bhutan was known as ‘the happiest place on earth’, measuring its success in GNH (Gross National Happiness) and limiting the influence of the outside world.

Over time, this changed, and through Napoli’s memoir we get to experience the shifting social structure as it happened: democracy, access to Western television stations, modern music, and a growing sense of materialism in a country that was previously focused on family and spirituality. There is one interesting thing to note—even with the changes, Bhutan has retained its $200-per-day tourist tax for visitors wanting to enter the country. The country may be more open, yes, but they still don’t want the hoards of unwashed Westerners traipsing through their sacred spaces.

I’m glad I read the book to learn about Bhutan, which I previously knew very little about. However, you may have noticed that I haven’t yet talked about Napoli and her time at the radio station. That’s because I actually found that part of the narrative somewhat dull and self-indulgent. I’m very glad that Napoli was able to ‘find herself’ in the experience, and was able to discover her priorities in life, but unlike other ‘travel memoir’ style books I’ve read recently, there didn’t seem to be a real point here.

She wasn’t there on a humanitarian mission, so the book wasn’t written to create an awareness of social injustice. She didn’t do anything particularly remarkable, so the book wasn’t written to chronicle how she rose from nothing to conquer to world. There are moments of excitement and flashes of brilliance, but on the whole, I wasn’t quite sure what the point of the book happened to be.

On the whole, I was a little disappointed. The cover (of my ARC, anyway) is lovely, and the title is fantastic. I only wish I’d known the purpose of the book, rather than feeling like I was simply indulging a friend telling a bland travel story, and not really sure how to walk away without being rude…

I will say this, however: If you like travel stories for the sake of travel stories, you’ll probably find much to enjoy here. I really mean that! I suspect the genre may simply not be “my thing.”

About the Author

Lisa Napoli’s last staff job was as reporter and back-up host for public radio show Marketplace. She covered the Internet revolution and the cultural impact of technology as a columnist and staff reporter for the NY Times CyberTimes, and as a correspondent for MSNBC.

A native of Brooklyn, NY and a graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. She currently lives in downtown Los Angeles, where there’s a giant swimming pool, and hopes in the second half of her life to be a philanthropist.

Like Clockwork

by Bonnie Dee

Steampunk / Romance

Release Date: December 2010

This novella from Carina Press sounded highly intriguing: A young woman named Victoria has pioneered work on automatons, originally intending for them to replace humans in dangerous jobs. However, society quickly latched on to her invention and started using automatons to replace humans in other positions as well, creating mass issues of unemployment.

Fearing social unrest and more potential deaths from disillusioned individuals like the notorious Slasher (who has been killing young women and removing their hearts), Victoria travels to a meeting of scientists and political leaders in order to plead her case: Restrict use of automatons before it’s too late.

Of course, she never makes it to the meeting. She’s kidnapped by an underground faction who are willing to do anything necessary to create the downfall and destruction of the automatons… but her kidnapper’s plan gets skewed when Victoria pledges her assistance to the cause.

Naturally, Victoria and her kidnapper Dash fall in love… and quickly, at that. It seems to just happen, without any real lead-in, and becomes a backdrop for the resolution of the Slasher plot, the automatons, and the underground’s unwillingness to resolve the problem peacefully.

It’s an interesting story, with interesting characters. The problem I found was that the story was too big for its format. Dee could have written a full-length novel with this plot, and been able to better explore the themes of automatons and humans being replaced by machines, social unrest, and so forth. In this short 31,000-word novella format, she’s forced to rush through the causes and consequences, leaving out crucial elements of character development and logical sequencing, resulting in a rushed story and a forced romance.

Naturally, the hero and the heroine defeat the odds and rise above the confines of polite society to be together. That’s fine, as unbelievable as the romance is because of its rushed nature, readers expect the main characters to be together at the end of a romance book.

What I didn’t expect, however, was the randomly tacked on, extremely graphic sex scene at the end of the book. Out of the blue, the main characters consummate their relationship and then the story ends. There’s no lead-in, and there’s no wrap-up. It felt like the author submitted the book, the editor said "okay, that’s good, but we need more heat", and the author tacked a sex scene on to the end because it was ‘required’. I’m not saying that’s what happened, it just read that way.

If you want a quick, entertaining steampunk novella, it’s not bad. It has its flaws, but it’s a decent story and will quench your steampunk thirst without demanding a commitment to a longer book or series.

I’d simply recommend that you stop reading before the final chapter — trust me, the story will make more sense and you’ll enjoy the book much better that way!

About the Author

Bonnie Dee began telling stories as a child. Whenever there was a sleepover, she was the designated ghost tale teller, guaranteed to frighten and thrill with macabre tales. She still has a story printed on yellow legal paper in second grade about a ghost, a witch and a talking cat.

Writing childish stories for her own pleasure led to majoring in English at college. Like most English majors, she dreamed of writing a novel but didn’t have the necessary focus and follow-through at that time in her life. A husband, children and work occupied the next twenty years, and it was only in 2000 that she began writing again. Bonnie enjoys reading stories about people damaged by life who find healing with a like-minded soul. When she couldn’t find enough books to suit her taste, she began to write them.

Delirium

by Lauren Oliver

YA Dystopian

Release Date: February 2011

This was my first Lauren Oliver read, and I started the book with fairly high expectations. I’d heard that Lauren Oliver’s books were compelling, vivid, and very emotional stories that drew the reader in and gripped them until the end.

In this case? Mostly true. My main issue with this novel was the premise: The United States has decided that love is a disease, and youth undergo a procedure at eighteen to "cure" them of the possibility of ever catching the disease. Marriages are matched by algorithm, and anyone showing signs of the disease is captured and forced to undergo treatment again and again (mind you, this element plays a major role in the plot, so I don’t want to say much more).

Now, while this is an interesting approach to building a dystopian society, I simply had trouble with the plausibility of it all. We don’t really learn why and how the United States decided that love was a disease, and I find that if I don’t have a clear explanation of how a dystopian society becomes dystopian, I stop caring. If it can’t be explained to me, there’s no logical reason for what’s happening, and I get frustrated.

Beyond that, the issue of eliminating love is so much more complicated than the way it’s presented here. Oliver touches on the inevitability of certain mothers being unable to "bond" with their children and thus needing to be removed from them… or some people committing suicide because of the apathy they develop… but I honestly think she downplayed this aspect. I know it’s for the sake of the story, but if mothers didn’t love their children, or teachers didn’t love the kids they taught, or if no one loved their job, the world would become a very dysfunctional place very quickly.

So for me, the premise was flawed and I didn’t buy it.

However… the actual writing, and the story, and the characters? Beautiful. Oliver has this incredible ability to write so smoothly that you’ll be halfway through the book before you’ve taken a second breath. Her style is clear and to the point, not flowery or melodramatic, allowing you to be drawn in without even realizing it. Honestly, even with all the flaws I mentioned above, I will be reading the second book, if only for the author’s ability to create characters that you really want to cheer for, and for her ability to make the words simply flow across the page like water.

About the Author

Lauren Oliver is the author of Before I Fall, which ALA Booklist called a "compelling book with a powerful message [that] should not be missed." A graduate of the University of Chicago and the MFA program at New York University, Lauren is now a full-time writer and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Delirium is her second novel.

My book to share today is a little heavier than usual, but those of you who enjoy philosophy, theology, or even ethics may find it right up your alley!

And just to give you a quick little flash forward, I have a number of book reviews coming up for some fantastic books this month, including:

• Among Others – Jo Walton
• The Raising: A Novel – Laura Kasischke
• Wither (Chemical Garden Trilogy, Book #1) – Lauren DeStefano
• Like Clockwork – Bonnie Dee
• Delirium – Lauren Oliver

…among many others! So, stay tuned.

If God, Why Evil?:

A New Way to Think About the Question

by Norman L. Geisler

Philosophy / Apologetics

Release Date: February 2011

Synopsis:

Where Did Evil Come From? And Why Doesn’t God Do Something About It?

The problem of evil is perhaps the most difficult question the Christian must face. If God is good and all-powerful, why is there suffering in the world? Can’t God put an end to murder, rape, and starvation? What about earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis? Why couldn’t a perfect God have made a perfect world?

In this concise but thorough book, Dr. Norman Geisler carefully answers these tough questions, using step-by-step explanations and compelling examples. He walks the reader through time-tested answers but also provides a new approach revolving around whether or not this world is the "best of all possible worlds." All this adds up to comforting news for believers: we can rest assured that God is both loving and all-powerful.

My Thoughts:

If you’re interested in the problem of evil, or curious about how an all-powerful, all-loving God could allow bad things to happen to good people – whether we’re talking personal troubles, natural disasters, or even illnesses – you’ll find something of value here.

Geisler approaches the topic as a philosopher and a Christian, using philosophical paradigms that will be familiar to anyone who has taken even a basic philosophy class at any level. He looks at arguments for and against basic points, and uses both historical and scientific data to answer the common objections to issues such as the nature, origin, persistence, purpose, and avoidability of evil, while also addressing the problem of Hell (eternal evil).

The appendices in Geisler’s book were actually the most intriguing part of the book for me personally, because he discusses the evidence for the existence of God using basic scientific principles and insights from prominent physicists and astronomers. He also gives several pages to a critique of the popular novel The Shack, looking at the theological issues surrounding Young’s portrayal of God and the nature of evil.

I found Geisler’s book to be very well put together, very readable, and highly logical. Reading the book doesn’t require a background in philosophy, nor does it present convoluted concepts that might be above the average layman’s comprehension levels.

Rather, if the problem of evil and why a loving God, if he existed, would allow so much suffering in the world is a question you have struggled with in the past (or perhaps are struggling with today), Geisler’s book offers some new, carefully presented, rational ways to think about the issue. And it’s a short read, to boot – a far cry from a textbook slog!

About the Author

Norman L. Geisler (PhD, Loyola University of Chicago) is distinguished professor of apologetics at Veritas Evangelical Seminary in Murrieta, California. He is the author of more than seventy books, including the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.

Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications,  Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Tyger Tyger

by Kersten Hamilton

YA Fantasy

Release Date: October 2010

Synopsis (from Amazon.ca):

Teagan Wylltson’s best friend, Abby, dreams that horrifying creatures–goblins, shape-shifters, and beings of unearthly beauty but terrible cruelty–are hunting Teagan. Abby is always coming up with crazy stuff, though, so Teagan isn’t worried. Her life isn’t in danger. In fact, it’s perfect. She’s on track for a college scholarship. She has a great job. She’s focused on school, work, and her future. No boys, no heartaches, no problems.

Until Finn Mac Cumhaill arrives. Finn’s a bit on the unearthly beautiful side himself. He has a killer accent and a knee-weakening smile. And either he’s crazy or he’s been haunting Abby’s dreams, because he’s talking about goblins, too…and about being The Mac Cumhaill, born to fight all goblin-kind. Finn knows a thing or two about fighting. Which is a very good thing, because this time, Abby’s right. The goblins are coming.

My Thoughts:

I wanted to love this book… I mean really love it. I thought a book about goblins sounded unique, and might present a fascinating, new spin on things…

Turns out that goblins are just fey by a different name. Turns out the author relies very heavily on exposition (let’s call it what it is: infodump) in the first section of the novel, which nearly caused me to walk away from it.

Now, it’s not all bad. In fact, once the second half of the book begins — three months after the first half — the action and characterization pick up in a significant way, and the story pulls you in because Things Are Happening. But by this point, we’ve lost the ability to make a meaningful connection to the main character. It doesn’t help that the tragedy at the end of part one is glossed over, with part two picking up months afterward, because that means we lose that connection with character and story that comes through a tragic event.

There are also little things that bothered me about the story: Why do we spend so much time with Teagan at the chimp enclosure where she works? She’s going to need sign language later, yes, so it’s important that we know that, but the time spent here is disproportionate to the information’s role in the rest of the book. I also wasn’t overly fond of Teagan’s best friend Abby, who seemed to be nothing more than a character of convenience. She’s never in any real danger, and all her scenes could have been filled with walk-on characters instead. Also, she spends far too much time in ‘disbelief’ of what’s happening, considering she was the one who had the prophetic dreams about Teagan being in danger in the first place!

The dialogue also becomes awkward at times, and the author seemed to overuse dialogue rather than allow much real characterization (or, as I’ve said, emotional connection to the story) to develop. Teagan, unfortunately, was the blandest of all, and she seems overshadowed by the other characters in the second half of the book — she’s just along for the ride, while everyone else has cool powers or abilities that actually solve their problems. Remind me why she’s the main character again?

All told, the story itself is decent, and the continuing action in the second half of the novel was what kept me reading. I liked Hamilton’s dedication to Irish mythology and, for the most part, her use of the correct types of Irish fey (uh, I mean goblins) since there are notable differences between the fey of England, Ireland, Scotland, and so on. For that reason, I’d recommend the book if you like books about fey or Irish mythology, but it’s not going to be a great read for someone who needs solid characterization to get into the story. That said, I did read it in one sitting (after getting through the first section), so it was entertaining enough to hold my interest all the way through!

I also really liked that the romance didn’t dominate the story, and — believe it or not — seemed more realistic than a lot of romance in YA. In this case, it started with a significant attraction and then cooled off a bit as they got to know each other… rather well done, I thought.

On the whole, I’d say I liked it. Not loved, as I’d hoped, but liked enough to read the next one if it happened to wander across my path someday.

Final Note: This review may come off as negative, but I hope it doesn’t discourage you from reading the book if you’re interested in it! I did enjoy it… it just had a few bumps and flaws along the way.

About the Author

Kersten Hamilton is the author of several picture books and many middle grade novels. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and this is her first novel for young adults. Visit her website at www.kerstenhamilton.com. <—Visit her website! She has a really cute bio.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book free of charge from NetGalley and Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A Hope Undaunted

by Julie Lessman

Historical / Inspirational

Release Date: September 2010

Publisher’s Synopsis:

What happens when the boy she loved to hate becomes the man she hates to love?

The 1920s are drawing to a close, and feisty Katie O’Connor is the epitome of the new woman–smart and sassy with goals for her future that include the perfect husband and a challenging career in law. Her boyfriend Jack fits all of her criteria for a husband–good-looking, well-connected, wealthy, and eating out of her hand. But when she is forced to spend the summer of 1929 with Luke McGee, the bane of her childhood existence, Katie comes face-to-face with a choice. Will she follow her well-laid plans to marry Jack? Or will she fall for the man she swore to despise forever?

My Thoughts:

Of the three books I received for review from Graf-Martin Communications this month, I was most excited about reading this one. I mean, just look at the cover! It’s not often that you see a 1920s-themed novel, particularly inspirational fiction, and this one sounded like a good read to boot.

Oh, how quickly things change.

I almost didn’t finish the book. It’s long – over 500 pages – and by the time I made it halfway through, I didn’t care about any of the characters or what happened to them. In fact, I put the book aside and said to my husband “I can’t finish this, I’m so bored”. But I ended up finishing it for one reason alone: I had to fall asleep early a few nights in a row (I had to get up earlier than usual for a few mornings) so I used to book to help me fall asleep. I know, it’s a terrible thing to admit, but this book just wasn’t for me.

However, I’m going to put a big asterisk on my statement, because I suspect the story will actually find a very wide audience, and here’s why: The whole entire book reads like a soap opera. I’m completely serious – if you like watching soap operas, you will probably love this book.

Here’s what didn’t work for me:

- Ten billion characters: there were way, way too many characters in this book, and by the end of the novel, I still didn’t have straight who was married to who and whose kids were whose… and I read fantasy, people. I’m no stranger to large casts, but when everyone in the book looks and sounds the same, it’s very confusing. But you know who has large casts that are hard to keep straight? Soap operas. Yep.

- Changing points of view without changing voice: Sometimes, a scene would end, only to pick back up in the exact same spot in the next scene break, but from the point of view of the opposite character. Now, this is an interesting way to provide insight into your characters and give a sense of perspective, but if you’re going to write in multiple voices, the voices must be distinct. And that’s hard to do when you have, oh, say ten to fifteen different POVs at various times throughout the novel. I also found that this constant shifting made it very difficult to get invested in the main characters, because it was hard to know which person/couple/issue we were supposed to be connecting to and investing emotionally in.

- Cliché, melodramatic plot twists: (SPOILER ALERT) Will they be together? Won’t they? No, they can’t, because this person’s sense of duty requires him to marry this person, but OH MY GOSH NOW SHE’S DEAD so it’ll work, but no, the heroine is now with someone else, but OH MY GOSH HE WANTS TO BE A PRIEST so it’ll work, but no, the pain of death is too fresh, but OH MY GOSH THEY CAN BE FRIENDS INSTEAD until a proposal comes OUT OF THE BLUE and they all live happily ever after.

Umm… what?

Like I said: Soap opera.

For me, this was pure tedium. I didn’t care about anyone, and the plot “twists” made me groan at every turn. However, it’s just like a soap opera in the sense that there are too many people, the twists are random (and convenient), and the schlocky romance is over the top. If you love soap operas, I honestly think this is the kind of book you’ll enjoy. As for me, I hope I never go near another book like this again.

P.S.: The writing is also very good, apart from the whole voice-doesn’t-change-with-character-POV-shifts thing. The author has received a large number of RWA awards, so I have to credit her for being able to tell a good story, even if her stories aren’t for me.

About the Author

Julie Lessman is the author of A Passion Most Pure, A Passion Redeemed, and A Passion Denied. Lessman has garnered several writing awards, including ten Romance Writers of America awards. She lives in Missouri.

Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.  Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Making Waves

by Lorna Seilstad

Historical Romance / Inspirational

Release Date: September 2010

Publisher’s Synopsis:

Sun, summer, and a scrumptious sailing instructor. What more could a girl want?

When spunky Marguerite Westing discovers that her family will spend the summer of 1895 at Lake Manawa, Iowa, she couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s the perfect way to escape her agonizingly boring suitor, Roger Gordon. It’s also where she stumbles upon two new loves: sailing, and sailing instructor Trip Andrews.

But this summer of fun turns to turmoil as her father’s secrets threaten to ruin the family forever. Will free-spirited Marguerite marry Roger to save her father’s name and fortune? Or will she follow her heart–even if it means hurting the family she loves?

Full of sharp wit and blossoming romance, Making Waves will whisk you away to a breezy lakeside summer holiday.

My Thoughts:

I honestly thought this book was going to be dreadful. I regretted asking for it the moment I hit the ‘send’ button, and put off reading it over and over again until I couldn’t wait any longer.

But guess what? It turned out to be my favorite of the three books from Graf-Martin’s blog tour this past month. Don’t let that hideous cover fool you – there’s a fun story inside with a likeable heroine and a hero who has a hard time doing anything right, let alone come along to save the day!

In short, here are the things I loved about this book:

• a heroine with serious flaws who has a full family (no/dead missing mother or father!)
• a hero who is anything but, and as likable as he is, continues to make mistakes
• a villain who DOES NOT WANT TO RAPE THE MAIN CHARACTER
• a villain whose moral compass kicks in when things turn grim – he’s bad, but he’ll only take it so far and continues to act within his established character
• the heroine’s younger brother plays a large role and helps to save the day
• an unusual setting makes for a very different atmosphere

Mostly, I was impressed with the character development and how each character stuck to who they were – they didn’t act out of character or act in an uncharacteristically drastic fashion toward the end of the novel, which I find tends to happen in a lot of Christian historical fiction.

No, this was just a fun, fast-paced read with good characters, a forward-driving plot, and just a touch of the ‘inspirational’ side of things so as to fit in with the time period but not overwhelm the story. In fact, I was a bit surprised at that, because Revell (the publisher) tends to be the one with “preachier” books, but not so in this case!

Don’t let the unremarkable back cover copy (could they have made it sound any more cliché or dull?) or the front cover stop you from reading this one (honestly, did they really HAVE to choose the image where she’s making that expression?!?!). I’ll be passing this one on to others, and will gladly read more from this author in the future.

About the Author

A history buff, antique collector, and freelance graphic designer, Lorna Seilstad is the author of Making Waves and draws her setting from her home state of Iowa. A former high school English and journalism teacher, she has won several online writing awards and is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers.

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.  Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group".

Head in the Clouds

by Karen Witemeyer

Historical Romance/ Inspirational

Release Date: October 2010

Publisher’s Synopsis:

When a recovering romantic goes to work for a handsome ranch owner, her heart’s not the only thing in danger!

        Adelaide Proctor longs to find a real-life storybook hero to claim as her own. But when a husband-hunting debacle leaves her humiliated, she interviews for a governess position on a remote Texas sheep ranch and vows to leave her silly romantic yearnings behind.
      Gideon Westcott left his privileged life in England to make a name for himself in America’s wool industry, never expecting to end up with a child. To his dismay, five-year-old Isabella hasn’t uttered a word since she lost her mother. The unconventionality of the new governess concerns Gideon—and intrigues him at the same time. But he can’t afford distractions.
      When Isabella’s uncle comes to claim the girl—and her inheritance—Gideon and Adelaide must work together to protect Isabella from the man’s evil schemes. Soon neither can deny their growing attraction. But after so many heartbreaks, will Adelaide be willing to get her head out of the clouds and put her heart on the line?

My Thoughts:

Witemeyer’s second novel is much like her first, which I reviewed earlier this year: Headstrong heroine, a do-no-wrong hero, and a “bad guy” or two whose motives (and violent tendencies) are one-dimensional.

Taken as a whole, I enjoyed the novel enough to recommend it as a rainy-day read borrowed from the library. It wasn’t bad, but like Witemeyer’s first novel, there were a few things that irked me… for that matter, some of the things have been bothering me within the genre as a whole, as well.

For starters, I’m sick and tired of the rape motif in Christian fiction. Yes, women were and are vulnerable, but does that honestly mean that every ill-intentioned man wants to sexually violate women? Isn’t there anything else that writers can choose as a man’s vice in order to portray him as a ‘bad guy’. Not every BAD man in the world wants to rape women, but it seems that in historical fiction these days, if you’re evil, you’re also a rapist.

Look, even criminals have moral boundaries (not all, I know, but most). And life isn’t so black and white that all ‘bad guys’ want to sexually abuse women and all ‘good guys’ are 100% chaste and wouldn’t even be willing to indulge an impure thought. Seriously, CBA, is this how you want to portray male/female relationships to impressionable female minds?

The ‘good guy’ won’t always ride in to save the day, and the ‘bad guy’ doesn’t always want to violate you. So why is this showing up in nearly EVERY SINGLE CHRISTIAN HISTORICAL NOVEL I’ve read these days?!?! Yes, I know lately I’ve been singing the praises of the CBA market and the changes it’s been making, but no one is perfect and that includes publishers. Maybe this is part of the attempt to be ‘edgy’ and ‘realistic’, but it’s becoming an epidemic and I’m sick of reading it.

It’s insulting to men in general, and it’s demoralizing to women. I don’t want to see it anymore, and I’m stating right here, right now, that I will not finish any more Christian Historicals that include this as a way to characterize its male characters.

/endrant

But back to the book. The heroine is mostly likable, and the hero is mostly perfect, and everyone lives happily ever after, albeit cut and bruised (and recovering from bullet wounds), etc., etc.

I have yet to figure out why there’s a focus on the heroine’s love of novel-reading in the back cover copy (and the image) when this aspect of her personality is barely touched on (I think she mentions a book by name once… you’d think it would be happening all the time, based on the description) so I found this piece of her character lacking and undeveloped.

Still, like I said… if you’re looking for a (mostly) feel-good, rainy-day read, it might be worth your time.

About the Author: Karen Witemeyer holds a master’s degree in psychology from Abilene Christian University and is a member of ACFW, RWA, and the Abilene Writers Guild. She has published fiction in Focus on the Family’s children’s magazine, and has written several articles for online publications and anthologies. A Tailor-Made Bride is her first novel. Karen lives in Abilene, Texas, with her husband and three children.Visit Karen’s Web site at www.karenwitemeyer.com

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.  Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group".