Miracle in a Dry Season

Book Review: Miracle in a Dry Season
By: Sarah Loudin Thomas
Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Romance
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
Publication Date: 8/5/2014
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Very sweet story; good character development—made the reader care about them; good character lessons; realistic storyline
Cons: Perla was not always involved; some story elements seemed unrelated; patchy plot sometimes; story didn’t always tie together

​Casewell Phillips is a single man and “a pillar of the community” in the small town of Wise. Perla Long is a strange new woman in town with a child at her side—and no husband to show. When Perla begins to catch Casewell’s eye, he must put aside his judgments on her for her illegitimate child. The rest of the town, however, struggle deeply with accepting Perla. First for her adultery, and second for her “knack” with cooking. Only when a severe drought hits the town do people have anything to do with her, and even then new rumors are spread. Despite her efforts to help the hungry people, they cannot bring themselves to accept her. Although they need her gift during the drought, many create ugly lies and rumors to explain her gift and refuse to partake of it. With doubt, confusion, hurt, and fear swirling about her head, Perla believes the best thing to do would be to leave Wise in order to protect Casewell from embarrassment and judgment. Casewell must decide what his true feelings are for the woman and child who so strongly impacted his heart, and whether or not he is willing to accept the consequences.
​Miracle in a Dry Season is a sweet romance. The odd thing about this book, however, is that the romance between Casewell and Perla is not always the focus. Perla is left out in many of the scenes and chapters in this book. There was a lack of connection between the two that characterizes a romance novel. I had thought that she was the protagonist, so I was a little surprised to discover that Casewell was. Because the book was written with his point of view, it is different than a traditional romance novel. Some side characters, Angie and Liza (two sweet ladies in their 70s) “took over” the novel occasionally. Casewell spent a lot of time with them, and it sometimes seemed unrelated or unnecessary to the story. Also, there is a supposed mystery at the beginning of the book regarding a scar on Casewell’s face. I must admit, I was excited about the possibility of a bit of mystery in this romance novel, but it turned out to be a very disappointing “mystery”, at least to me. It could have been developed a little more deeply. The plot seemed a bit patchy at times, like it didn’t tie together perfectly. But, nobody is perfect, and I can’t imagine any novel would be either.
The morals to the story were very good and fit well with the characters and plot. The overall theme is that love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8) Forgiveness is tied in with that theme as well. Perla has sinned, but Casewell’s love for her covers and forgives her sin. That makes this story so sweet. Perla is overwhelmed that a man as good as Casewell could love her. All of the characters are very endearing. I felt terrible for Perla when the town treated her badly, and loved Casewell when he was one of the only ones who cared and stood up for her. The romance between the two was very sweet, and very realistic. A lot of romances are much too fictional, and they give a wrong impression of love. This novel really had a realistic view of how a couple would fall in love and act accordingly.
​Miracle in a Dry Season is the first in Mrs. Thomas’ Appalachian Blessings series. Although this book was not my favorite romance, I will be looking forward to reading her next novel.

I received a complimentary copy of Miracle in a Dry Season from Bethany House Publishers through The Christian Manifesto in exchange for my honest review. The opinions stated are my own.

This review also appears on The Christian Manifesto. http://thechristianmanifesto.com/fiction/miracle-in-a-dry-season/

All For A Sister

Book Review: All for a Sister
By: Allison Pittman
Genre: Fiction/Christian/Historical
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars (very good)
Pros: Different way of writing, interesting storyline, suspenseful, good character development
Cons: Incorrect punctuation sometimes confused things, sometimes things in the story were ambiguous, the story occasionally lagged

​Celeste DuFrane is a young Hollywood star with her life and acting career ahead of her. Starting young in the acting world, her scientific father’s work with color film brought her into the right Hollywood circles. Her mother’s objections to Celeste’s acting never stops her from pursuing her goals, but she never understands the real reasons behind her mother’s melancholy and heartbroken state throughout her life. Dana Lungdren, unjustly accused of murdering Mrs. DuFrane’s infant daughter (Celeste’s older sister), has spent most of her life in the Bridewell House of Corrections. She never stops writing letters to the judge who sent her there, pleading for justice. No news of her mother, no response from the judge, and a cruel prison matron create a life of near torture for sweet Dana. When she is unexpectedly released many years later, she finds that she is left an inheritance of half of the DuFrane estate, and Celeste DuFrane was left the other half. Her amazement and shock that the cruel woman who sent her to prison for a crime she didn’t commit is masked by her gratitude to finally be free. While Celeste attempts to bring Dana into society, they discover some shocking truths about Mrs. DuFrane and Dana’s beloved mother through the written confession of Mrs. Marguerite DuFrane.
​All for a Sister is written in a very interesting style. The story is written almost backwards, as it starts out near the end of the story, and then goes backwards into the past. Throughout the book the reader is given chapter spurts of Celeste’s past, Dana’s past, Mrs. DuFrane’s written confession, and the present. Only little pieces of the mystery are given at a time. Because of this, it becomes a hard one to put down because you are constantly being fed little bits of the mystery. The plot was well thought out, and the story had a twist that was pretty unexpected. The different style of the chapters was refreshing and made a nice variety that you don’t normally find in the chapters of books. The characters, especially Dana Lungdren, are so easy to care about. I felt sorry for poor Dana throughout the chapters explaining her past life in prison. Caring for Dana made Mrs. DuFrane look like a terrible monster, but throughout her confession I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her almost. Her bitterness and anger turned her into a cruel person who only cared about herself and her revenge on Dana. Reading her confession, however, proved that she was just miserable with herself, and it made me wish she had just forgiven Dana and lived a much happier life. All the characters throughout the book are well developed, including the minor characters which gives the story more depth. The setting, the Roaring Twenties in Hollywood, is not frequently used which I really enjoyed. I liked that the book wasn’t just set in Hollywood, but actually discussed the experimentation with color film and Celeste’s acting in movies.
​Quotation marks occasionally caused confusion. Sometimes they were there, and sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they were just misplaced. It caused confusion and sometimes I had to reread sections to make sure I knew who was talking. Occasional ambiguous statements were confusing as well, but this wasn’t frequent. Sometimes the chapters dealing with the present were a bit uninteresting because I just wanted to find out what had happened in the past with the mystery. That could be just me though, because it wasn’t necessarily like the author was just filling in space (at least not most of the time).
​All for a Sister is a great historical fiction book with a mystery twist. I will most likely be reading it again, and will recommend it. It is definitely written differently than other books I have read, and that made it even more likable.

I received a complimentary copy of All For a Sister from Tyndale House Publishers through The Christian Manifesto in exchange for my honest review. The opinions stated are my own.

Buying Samir

Book Review: Buying Samir
Author: Kimberly Rae
Genre: Christian/Teens/YA
Publisher: BJU Press
Publication Date: October 21, 2014
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 (Excellent)
Pros: great insight on human trafficking; exciting plot; good character development
Cons: confusing plot structure sometimes

Buying Samir is the second installment of the India’s Street Kids series, with Capturing Jasmina being the first. Jasmina is a former street kid, now living with the Christian missionaries who rescued her from slavery. With the missionaries, she is now on a mission to locate her brother, Samir, and to rescue him from slavery. What she doesn’t know is that Samir is no longer the enslaved, but the enslaver. When she runs from the missionaries in an attempt to rescue him on her own, she not only endangers her own life, but the lives of others she meets along the way.

Kimberly Rae hit a home run with this series. Exciting and suspenseful, Buying Samir continued the story begun in Capturing Jasmina. Both books end in such a way that creates a suspense which makes the reader want to continue on to the next book. Because Capturing Jasmina was such a hit with me, I was anxious to read Buying Samir. I did have my doubts about it, however, as the second installment in a series (whether book or even movie) is not always as good as the first. I was not disappointed. Buying Samir fluidly continued the plot, and set the stage for Mrs. Rae’s next book in The India’s Street Kids book series. Although this series is meant for young adult, or teens, I believe many adults would benefit from it as well.

The writing structure and style in this book is very interesting. Almost poetic (and I am not talking about rhyming), Mrs. Rae’s words flow so creatively. She does not always come right out and say something. Instead, she uses imagery or more creative language in an interesting way, although not difficult to understand. Her writing style was fresh and caused me to enjoy her writing even more. She had a great balance between descriptions and character dialogue. So often in fiction authors will write an overabundance of one over the other, which can make a book somewhat boring at times. Her dialogue is fresh and realistic. There is no boring chatter. Her characters were well defined, and I really fell in love with Jasmina and her cause. Throughout the book, I really started to care about what happened, and found myself almost telling her what to do when she needed help. That is a craft not many writers have—causing the reader to care about the protagonist. Mrs. Rae’s style is almost biographical, and sometimes I forgot that I was reading fiction. On the other hand, the story is based on the truth of child trafficking and was really eye-opening. I appreciated the knowledge and research that Mrs. Rae put into this novel. I particularly enjoyed learning about another culture. India is not exactly the most common setting for a novel, and that definitely made this book a tad higher on my reading list. Mrs. Rae added in some subtle humor with Jasmina’s view on American culture. At one point Jasmina notices a tablecloth and is confused by what its use could be, only to come to the conclusion that the table must be broken and is being covered to hide the holes. There is also the time when Jasmina attempts to use an American shower, but I won’t go spoiling any more.

The only thing that I found to be a “con” to this book was the diary. Jasmina writes in a diary throughout the book, and occasionally that is what begins the chapters. The diary in itself was a neat aspect. I really liked reading what Jasmina was thinking and how she viewed things. I think it helps the reader love her more by knowing how she thinks. However, it caused some slight confusion with me as the diary tells what is coming next. At first I was confused, because once I got into the next chapter, the story went backwards. Once I got used to that, however, it didn’t bother me and actually created suspense. If the reader took that into consideration, and understood the aspect of the diary, it probably wouldn’t confuse anyone. In fact, I could be in the minority on this, but I still felt like mentioning it.

This book is a quick read at only about 160 pages. I read it in about a day, reading off and on throughout the day. I honestly couldn’t stop reading. I had to find out what happened. Of course, there is still a loose end for the next book. As I mentioned above, this book is meant for teens, but could be enjoyed by any age really. For teens, I really would recommend it because first of all, there is no questionable material for that age group. It is difficult to find novels for teens without unnecessary material. The spiritual aspect in this book is great—it gives the gospel although not overpowering. I also think it would be a great book for teens to open their eyes to what is going on in the world. Teens naturally tend to focus on themselves, and this book series could get their eyes on other people and how they live. One quick thing I will mention, these books have to be read in order. If you haven’t read Capturing Jasmina, DON’T read Buying Samir until you have. In conclusion, this is definitely a great book. I give it four and a half stars.

I received Buying Samir from BJU Press through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The opinions stated are my own.

This review also appears on The Christian Manifesto. http://thechristianmanifesto.com/fiction/buying-samir/