Book Review: Becoming Lady Lockwood by Jennifer Moore

Title: Becoming Lady Lockwood
Author: Jennifer Moore
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: A clean romance

Amelia Beckett loves the freedom that comes with being a widow. If that sounds callous, don't blame her-- she never actually met her husband. Her marriage was on paper only, brokered between her husband and father, and shortly thereafter, her husband was lost at sea, leaving Amelia the rights to supervise the Jamaican plantation on which she grew up. Then Sir William Drake, Amelia's brother-in-law, shows up at the plantation, determined to take Amelia to London to see her father and prove the marriage a fraud. He's angry and suspicious; she's defensive and worried, and somewhere in the Atlantic, the two fall in love.

Becoming Lady Lockwood is a pretty great story. I loved Amelia. We often see spunky heroines in historical romances, and often these characters feel too modern and not-quite believable, but Moore does a nice job positioning Amelia as a self-sufficient young widow. I felt that the tension between the two characters worked, and the external villains provided enough of a plot on which to hang the internal conflicts.

Book Review: Sweet Confections by Danyelle Ferguson

Title: Sweet Confections
Author: Danyelle Ferguson
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: a clean read, with some stalkerish violence

Rachel is full-figured and thirtyish and her mother is eager to get her married off. Although she's the owner of a successful bakery, she can't seem to find the same success in her love life. When the book opens, she's just broken up with a creeper who turned out to be married. Then Rachel meets Graydon, also known as GG, also known as the most famous and revered hockey player in Kansas City. He's exactly what Rachel doesn't want in a man, yet she can't help being drawn to him.

I genuinely enjoyed the interactions between Rachel and Graydon in Sweet Confections. Ferguson does a nice job creating believable characters with just the right amount of romantic tension. I'm not sure I liked the way that the story shifted from a romance to a thriller in the second half of the story, and the climax seemed much more plot-driven than character driven. Still, this is a solid romance that would appeal to people who like clean, modern romances with interesting characters.

Book Review: Longing for Home: Hope Springs

Title: Longing for Home: Hope Springs
Author: Sarah M. Eden
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: A clean read

Longing for Home: Hope Springs is the sequel to Longing for Home: A Proper Romance. When this second installment opens, Katie Macauley has decided to stay in Hope Springs, Wyoming instead of returning to Ireland, despite the fact that the town is in turmoil, with the Irish pitted against the other townspeople. Katie is also in turmoil, unsure of whether she loves (Irish) Tavish, or (not Irish) Joseph. As the story progresses, the town seems even more divided, and as they face a devastating winter, it seems unlikely that they will ever come together. Then tragedy strikes Katie, and suddenly there is clarity, both in town relations and in Katie's relations of the heart.

Although I know many people loved this novel, I was not a fan of the first book, and therefore felt like I was destined not to like this one either. It feels like this is really one long story split into two books (the traditional arc of a romance isn't fulfilled at the end of the first novel), and I'm not sure that it serves a narrative purpose as much as it does a marketing purpose. Eden is a fine writer, but I don't feel moved by Katie or Tavish, and only feel reluctantly drawn to Joseph, so I found myself not caring as much as I felt I should have about what the eventual resolution to the novel would be.

Book Review: The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol

Title: The UnAmericans: Stories
Author: Molly Antopol
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Audible
Content Alert: some swearing, sex

An ex-convict and his son take a road trip to Napa in the 1950s. A political science professor in Maine attempts to rein in what his daughter will say about him in her off-Broadway play. A recently divorced owner of a dry cleaning shop picks up a Ukrainian woman and finds himself married in Kiev. An Israeli soldier saves his brother's life. What do these stories (and several others) have in common? All are represented in Molly Antopol's stunning collection The UnAmericans.

I didn't know this was a collection of stories when I started it, and when the first story ended, I was left with a deep sense of loss. I wanted to know so much more about these people, their lives, and the resolution they would come to. Thankfully, the stories that came after were just as interesting and satisfying as the first. I particularly loved the last, the story of an estranged couple from Vermont who reunites in Jerusalem to settle the estate of her grandmother. The collection features Jewish characters, some American, some with no ties at all to America, so the title puzzles a bit, but the stories are definitely worth reading.

Book Review: All the Finer Things by Stephanie Connelley Worlton

Title: All the Finer Things
Author: Stephanie Connelley Worlton
Enjoyment Rating: **
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: Domestic abuse

Megan lives in a penthouse apartment, has beautiful clothes, a gorgeous car, an adorable baby, and she's married to one of the most prominent plastic surgeons in Southern California. But her husband also abuses her regularly, and one night, after a particularly bad beating, she takes her baby and the cash she's stockpiled and makes a run for it, landing in a sleepy small town where her Audi and her designer jeans make her pretty conspicuous.

That doesn't sound so bad, right? And the premise of the story is pretty good-- a spoiled rich girl who has to make it on her own in a small town. But every single character is painted with incredibly broad strokes. The evil husband is badder than bad-- he's not just abusive, but adulterous, alcoholic, and gambling addicted, and possibly interested in murder. Megan is a spoiled rich girl who allowed everyone else in her life to make her choices for her (first her mother and then her husband) until she had a child. Ammon, the love interest, is almost too good-hearted to be true. A little more nuance would have gone a long way with this story.

Book Review: Jane and Austen by Stephanie Fowers

Title: Jane and Austen
Author: Stephanie Fowers
Enjoyment Rating: **
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: a clean read

Take all of the characters from Jane Austen's novels, change their names slightly, and throw them together at a hotel in San Diego for a wedding celebration. Add in another bunch of place names, very slightly different (as in misspelled) from Austen's originals (like "Brightin Beach," which reminded me of a child who only could have been born in Utah and made me want to gag). Finally, throw into the mix a girl named Jane and a boy named Austen. They're truly mismatched-- she a starry romantic and he a practical MBA student, but this is a romance novel, so love will conquer all.

Okay, so this is going to sound less diplomatic than perhaps it should-- can everyone just lay off on the Jane Austen remakes? I think most people agree that Jane Austen was pretty much the best at writing smart romances that were really cultural commentaries. Chances are that if you try your hand at modernizing or rewriting or I-don't-really-know-what-this-is-ing to a Jane Austen story, you're going to fall significantly short of the original. That doesn't mean that there aren't the Cluelesses of the world, but Jane and Austen is not a Clueless. Fowers provided a directory in the back of the novel to show draw the parallels between characters in Jane and Austen and in Jane Austen, but I decided I didn't really care enough by that point. A little less madcap, a little less cutesy would have gone a long way with this story.

2014 Reading Recap

You say you don't want to read 100 books? How about a handful of really great ones? Here's a recap of my favorite books from my 2014 reading:

Best Fantasy:

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
A Golem, a Jinni, and lots of nights wandering around turn of the century NYC.

Best LDS Nonfiction:

Women at Church by Neylan McBaine
Lots of practical advice, anecdotal evidence, and support from LDS church leaders and behavioral experts showing how members and local leaders can work to help women feel more equal and included as LDS church members.

Best Historical Fiction:

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
A fictionalized retelling of the lives of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, abolitionists and women's rights supporters born in Charleston in the late 18th century, along with the story of Handful, Sarah's slave. 

Best Nonfiction:

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs
Rob Peace's life is one that defies stereotypes or platitudes, and Jeff Hobbs tells it engagingly and with so much desire to understand.

Best LDS Fiction:

Love Letters of the Angels of Death by Jennifer Quist
A portrait of a marriage over at least a decade, beautifully written but never sentimental, with a shocking, slightly unsettling twist near the end. 

Best Children's:

Girls Who Choose God by McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding, Illustrated by Kathleen Peterson
These stories of women in the Bible is beautifully illustrated and set up in a way that helps readers relate the stories to their own lives. 

Best Horror:

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
This deliciously-creepy sequel to The Shining is as much about the relationship between the two protagonists as it is about defeating their soul-eating enemies. 

Best Essays:

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
On its surface, this is a book of essays and articles written by Patchett over the last 30 or so years. But it's organized in a way that gives it a beautiful and compelling narrative arc.

Best Book I Should Have Read a Long Time Ago:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
A book that takes patience and time, but the story of the dying Reverend John Ames, and the stories he wants to leave for his young son, are well worth slowing one's pace to enjoy.

Best Romance: 

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
The engaging tale of Sophy, a Regency-era Mary Poppins, who enters her cousins' lives and manages to straighten out all the messes they made.

Best Memoir:

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb
This year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize shares the experiences that made her a crusader for girls' education and led to her being shot by the Taliban.

Best Thriller:

The Son by Jo Nesbo
Redemption and restitution are themes in this fast-paced, yet thoughtful, stand-alone Scandinavian police procedural.  

Best YA:

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Teenage twins whose close relationship is destroyed when tragedy strikes must learn to deal with guilt and grief to come together again.

Best Literary Fiction:

Lila by Marilynne Robinson
The third book in the Gilead series, Lila, the reluctant young wife of John Ames, is one whose voice and story I won't soon forget. 

Book Review: Before the Clock Strikes Thirty by Aubrey Mace

Title: Before the Clock Strikes Thirty
Author: Aubrey Mace
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: a clean read

When Shannon is ten, a gypsy reads her fortune-- before she turns thirty she will marry a man who she meets at a wedding. Shannon becomes somewhat obsessed with weddings, and when she's a BYU student, she reconnects with Nathan, who embarrassed her at a wedding many years ago (he doesn't remember this happening, and she doesn't remind him). But Nathan's not so bad this time around. In fact, they become BFFs, and he makes it his mission to take Shannon to as many weddings as possible so she can find her one true love. Of course, he's right in front of her the whole time.

This story is cute, if predictable (is it even a legitimate criticism to say a romance novel is predictable-- isn't that part of the genre?). I read two BYU romances in a row, and while I think these stories definitely have their appeal, and I was a BYU bride myself, they also make me cringe a little bit. It makes me sad that Shannon is so eager to fulfill the fortune teller's promise when she's still so young. I did like the "friends before lovers" aspect of this story, and though that the story of how they met at BYU (involving fainting and lots of pizza) was pretty charming.

Book Review: The Skeleton in my Closet Wears a Wedding Dress by Sally Johnson

Title: The Skeleton in my Closet Wears a Wedding Dress
Author: Sally Johnson
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: a clean read

Sophia did the thing every parent fears her daughter will do when she goes to BYU-- she met a returned missionary at the beginning of her freshman year, got engaged in September, married in October, and divorced in May. Now she's back at school for her second year, nineteen, divorced, and mortified, and living with a bunch of roommates.

While there is a romantic element to The Skeleton in my Closet Wears a Wedding Dress, what makes the book a good read, a book I might even recommend to my girls, is the way that Sophia starts to know herself through this experience. It's true that her ex was a jerk, and that the friend she confides in turns into more than a friend, but Sophia learns that she has strengths she didn't know she had. This one is cute, and a quick, enjoyable read. The BYU culture in the novel is more fun than annoying, and Johnson is spot-on with her cast of roommates.

Book Review: Falling for You by Krista Lynne Jensen

Title: Falling For You
Author: Krista Lynne Jensen
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: a clean read

If you remember Elizabeth Ellis from Krista Lynne Jensen's novel The Orchard, you might remember someone who was materialistic and kind of self-involved (but who seems to redeem herself in the end). In Falling for You, Elizabeth gets the chance to tell her story, and to find her shot at love. She trades in her jet set lifestyle for a chance to help run a store in Jackson, WY, and stays in a small inn when she arrives. Of course, the innkeeper is a handsome man with a complicated past, and Elizabeth is forced to decide what she wants out of love, out of life and out of the religion both of her sisters have joined.

My favorite thing about Falling For You was to see someone who was fairly unlikeable in another story become redeemed in this one. It makes me question how I often misjudge people and situations and don't see the big picture of people's lives. The romance was fairly predictable, and the conversion story (which was explored pretty thoroughly in The Orchard with Elizabeth's sister) seemed a little repetitive, but this was still a worthwhile read.