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There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones

Apr6

The INSPY Awards are blogger-initiated book awards for fictional literature that grapples with expressions of the Christian faith. The awards were given in several categories in 2011, including the category of “literature for young people”, and I got to be judge in that category. The INSPY Awards took a break in 2012, but they’re back this year. And the list below is the “long list” of nominated books in the Literature for Young People category for this time around:

Wreath by Judy Christie
With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo. Semicolon review here.
Thundersnow by Sheila Hollinghead
Dead Man’s Hand by Eddie Jones
There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones
Crazy Dangerous by Andrew Klavan. Semicolon review here.
Cake – Love, Chickens and a Taste of Peculiar by Joyce Magnin
Right Where I Belong by Krista McGee
The Embittered Ruby by Nicole O’Dell
The Shadowed Onyx by Nicole O’Dell
Code of Silence by Tim Shoemaker
Addison Blakely: Confessions of a PK by Betsy St. Amant
Temptation: Solitary Tales No. 3 by Travis Thrasher
How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr

Three of the books on the list I’ve already read and reviewed, as indicated. Actually, I read How To Save a Life by Sara Zarr, and I thought I reviewed it but can’t find the review anywhere. I liked all three very much. I read a couple more of the books on this long list this past week: There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones and Code of Silence by Tim Shoemaker (review coming soon).

Ms. Jones is a rather prolific author of teen romances for Christian girls. Her books were all over Lifeway last time I was there. I rad one of her other books a year or two ago and thought it was just “meh.” This one was fairly low on the scale, too, and would have received a complete pan, were it not for the setting: Ireland.

Finley Sinclair, daughter of a wealthy hotel magnate, and sister to Will whose death in a terrorist incident has put Finley’s life in a tailspin of grief, is headed for Ireland to spend a year studying and trying to reconnect with God. Will came to love and know God when he studied in Ireland, and Finley hopes to follow in his footsteps, literally by visiting all of the places Will wrote about in his travel journal. Color Finley grey: grief-stricken, questioning, recovering from a mental breakdown, and lost.

Enter Beckett Rush, teen heart-throb, Hollywood player and bad boy, and star of a series of vampire movies. He’s in Ireland to film the latest movie in the Steel Markov vampire franchise. Beckett and Finley meet on the plane, clash, and hope never to see one another again. Alas, predictably, they are destined to meet again, clash again, and eventually fall in love and live happily ever after.

OK, it’s not quite that cliche. Take away the “live happily ever after.” Beckett and especially Finley are dealing with way too many issues to have a traditional happy ending. Beckett has a pushy dad who doubles as his greedy manager. Finley has mental health issues, a grouchy school assignment, and the loss of her faith, as well as the afore-mentioned grief and Beckett to keep her busy and confused.

As I think about it, this book would have made a good K-drama: Finley falls asleep on Beckett’s shoulder and drools, the two feud but are thrown together in spite of themselves, there’s a group of nasty, jealous girls at school, Finley has a sidekick, Erin, whom she mentors, lots of K-drama tropes. An awkward kiss or two, change the nationalities and the setting of the novel, take out the God-talk, and it would work on Korean TV just fine. In fact, it would work better on screen and with some editing.

I probably wouldn’t have made it through this one, though, if it hadn’t been set in Ireland. Give me a vivid setting, and I’ll follow you anywhere. And I got to read parts of the dialogue with an Irish lilt inside my head. A good plot and some engaging characters would have helped the journey, however.

Other reviews in which the blogger thought it was just peachy (I may be in the minority on this one): Edgy Inspirational Romance, YA Books Central, Christian Novels, Tree Swing Reading, etc.

The Resurrection and the Life

Mar29

I thought I’d post a few times today and tomorrow about the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and what it means to me and to some of the authors and fictional and actual characters that I have on my bookshelves. I’m going to take turns blogging and house-cleaning and see how that goes.

I first read Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities when I was in ninth grade. Three of us—Christina, Teresa, and I— wrote a chapter-by-chapter summary of the entire book, making our own little study guide to the novel as a school project. We did this before the age of personal computers and before any of us knew how to type. I can’t remember exactly what the finished product looked like, but it was a lot of work.

The themes of death, burial, imprisonment, rescue and resurrection are woven throughout Dickens’ tale set during the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Doctor Manette is rescued from a living death inside the Bastille. Jerry Cruncher is a “resurrection man” who digs up dead bodies to sell them. Charles Darnay is rescued and recalled to life twice during the novel, once when he is on trial in England and again when he is headed for guillotine in France.

But the most vivid representation of death and resurrection comes at the end of the novel when the reprobate Sydney Carton gives up his life to save Charles and Lucy Darnay and to ensure their future together. Carton is walking down the street when he remembers these words from Scripture read at his father’s funeral long ago:

“I am the resurrection, and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them always.

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion.

But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness He walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.- “Like me!”

A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

On Good Friday, when we are in the midst of death and sin and darkness, it does sometimes seem a if “Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion.” A blogging friend sent out a tweet earlier today saying that he had “difficulty ‘pretending’ on Good Friday that Jesus is dead.” Of course, Jesus isn’t dead, but as far as imagining the feeling of despair and “being delivered over to death”, I have no trouble whatsoever. Sometimes things in this world are very dark, and the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our eventual resurrection with Him is all that keeps from utter despair.

Thank God for Resurrection Sunday!

January Justice by Athol Dickson

Mar5

Mr. Dickson, one of my favorite Christian authors, has this new entry in the genre of detective thriller with a complicated hero in a sticky situation. And there’s no explicit sex, bad language or nastily descriptive violence.

Malcolm, recently released from the mental hospital, recently widowed after the murder of his rich-but-secret wife, and recently unemployed as a result of both events, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life and his job as chauffeur and bodyguard to Hollywood’s celebrities. Then, he gets mixed up in Guatemalan politics and possible terrorism and ghosts from his past come back to haunt him, and it all gets messy and violent and confusing, especially with the drug flashbacks and the females with secrets.

I’m really looking forward to reading the books in this series and finding out more about the tough guy with a good heart, Malcolm Cutter. As a character he reminds me of Michael Westen from the TV series Burn Notice. Westen and Cutter both are rugged, resilient guys, ex-military, with a past that gets in the way of the present. Both men are unsentimental, but they have plenty of ability to love and be loved and a gift for friendship that shows in their interactions with old buddies who become allies. Westen and Cutter have both been cut off from their respective military or para-military professions. Westen is a burned spy; Malcolm Cutter is a court-martialed ex-marine.

However, unlike Michael Westen, who never as far as I know once mentions or thinks about a connection to God or a spiritual dimension to life, Malcolm Cutter needs a spiritual connection to God, something to help him understand what’s real and trustworthy and stable in his life. Malcolm has a friend, Bud Tanner, a chaplain from his old Marine unit, who tells him to cling to something when “the threat of madness” comes to torment Cutter:

“It was Bud who showed me where it says in the Good Book to think about true things. Noble things. Whatever is right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. It was Bud who helped me see that such things were always there, even when I could not think of them. They had not died with Haley, and they had never stopped existing, even when I was lost within the chaos in my skull. And because they were always there, because they were external to me and did not rely on me in any for their existence, I could hold on to them, or the idea of them, and in doing that, regain some sense of stability.”

This passage is about as “religious” as the book gets, but it’s enough. Malcolm Cutter has been forced to become aware of his own helplessness and dependency. We think of ourselves as competent, sane people, in control of our own minds and bodies. But really we are only one step away from total vulnerability, insanity, and lostness. And we need a reference point outside ourselves. We need a saviour.

“Without God man has no reference point to define himself. 20th century philosophy manifests the chaos of man seeking to understand himself as a creature with dignity while having no reference point for that dignity.” ~R. C. Sproul

The second and third novels in The Malcolm Cutter Memoirs series, Free Fall in February, and A March Murder, are coming out in 2013.

January Justice: First Look, the first few paragraphs of the novel.

A Light Shining by Glynn Young

Feb2

I thoroughly enjoyed Dancing Priest, Mr. Young’s first book about Michael Kent, Olympic cyclist, Edinburgh student, Anglican priest, and orphan with a mysterious past. Of course, it’s also the story of Sarah Hughes, American artist and also a student in Edinburgh, whose lack of faith throws a kink in the developing romance between her and Michael.

In this sequel, I was pleased to read more about Sarah and Michael and their growing families, both nuclear and church families. Michael’s and Sarah’s Christian testimony through lives lived openly and vulnerably is fresh and un-jaded. I loved the way that in their youthful enthusiasm they just did the next thing that God called them to, with prayer and thoughtfulness, yes, but without that too long attention to possible problems and hesitation that many of us (I) are prone to allow to derail our best intentions.

Mr. Young’s writing is simple and unadorned, easy to read and follow. The e-book edition of the book that I read sometimes needed some more spacing indicators to show when the point of view was changing from one character to another. There’s a shadowy terrorist villain in this second book, and I sometime couldn’t tell when I was leaving the mind and viewpoint of Michael Kent and entering the mind and world of the villain. I find this problem frequently in my Kindle reads, and it’s a little bit annoying, but not overwhelmingly so.

I would recommend these companion novels to anyone with an interest in well-written Christian-themed fiction, Anglican church fiction, adoption and street children, Olympic cycling, or the politics surrounding the British royal family. Read them in order, first Dancing Priest and then A Light Shining. No spoilers her, but all of these subjects are elements in the these two books about a vibrant young couple coming to terms with their faith in Christ and their journey to follow Him through difficult circumstances.

The Opposite of Hallelujah by Anna Jarzab

Jan21

A good example of what Christian fiction should be aiming for, this book dealt with religious (Christian) themes without forced resolution or unreal expectations.

Caro Mitchell considers herself practically an only child, even tells people that her sister is dead, since older sister Hannah left the family when Caro was only eight years old to become a member of an enclosed order of nuns. Caro has hardly seen Hannah since then, and she certainly doesn’t feel as if she has a real honest-to-goodness sibling. But now Hannah is leaving the convent and coming home, and Caro isn’t sure sure what to think about her family, her sister, her religion, or God.

Hannah is one of those “not very religious” people that seem to abound these days, maybe always have. I’ll admit that I don’t get it since I’ve always been fascinated by religion, both pagan and Christian, by the question of who God is and what He expects of me, by issues of sin and salvation and just theology. I don’t really understand someone who just doesn’t think much about such things. Nevertheless, I thought this book gave a good picture of a teenager who never really did think much about religion, and her own Catholic tradition in particular, until she was confronted with a sister for whom the issues of religion and God were all-consuming.

Caro and Hannah don’t really understand each other. There’s an age gap of about ten years between the two girls. There’s also an experience gap since Hannah left “the world” when she was about eighteen years old to become a nun, and Caro has been living with her parents as an only child for the past ten years. The girls also have different personalities: Hannah is fragile, indecisive, and uncertain. Caro is at first somewhat self-centered, unreliable, and focused on her own goals to the exclusion of others’ needs and wants. As the story progresses, Caro learns to care about Hannah and her parents and her friends, and she becomes a much more empathetic and mature young lady.

There’s a romance element to the novel: Caro has a boyfriend. That part, though it added dimensions to Caro’s personality, wasn’t the most interesting part of the book. It was Caro’s questions about God and about Christianity and her growing relationship with Hannah that made me keep reading to find out how and whether Caro would be able to grow outside herself and establish selfless relationships with God and others.

Recommended for those who like a YA contemporary novel with Christian discussions and themes that doesn’t preach or force the reader into predetermined conclusions.

Spirit Fighter by Jerel Law

Jan19

Angels, nephilim, winged demons, kidnapping, creepy.

A not-too-compelling entry in the Christian horror-dystopia-weird creatures genre.

I dunno. If you like stories about supernatural creatures but want to keep your reading theologically borderline sound and sexually pure (those vampire/zombie stories get nasty sometimes), then this debut novel from Thomas Nelson Publishers might fit the bill. I found the idea of nephilim who are half angel/half human a bit hard to swallow. It’s based on Genesis 6, the story of how “the sons of God” married “the daughters of men” and had children who were “giants.”

The nephilim in Spirit Fighter are not giants, and they’re not all half angel, but rather some are only one quarter angel. Jonah and his sister Eliza find out that their mother is a nepilim, the daughter of a human mother and a fallen angel, at the same time that they find out that Mom has been kidnapped by fallen angels. The evil demons believe that Jonah’s mom will “come over to the dark side” and be very powerful in defeating the plans of Elohim, as they call God, because of her nephilim heritage.

Guided by a guardian angel and empowered with special gifts as a result of their own 1/4 angel heritage, Jonah and Eliza go to New York to rescue mom. This book is the first in the Son of Angels: Jonah Stone series.

Tagline: “Your mom always said you were an angel, what if she was right?”

Christian Thrillers?

Oct10

These three books were nominated for the INSPY Awards for “faith-driven” literature in the Mystery/Thriller category. Two of the three made it to the shortlist of five novels in the category considered to be the best of the nominations. My question is: can Christian (or faith-driven) and thriller go together? I’d answer my own question with a qualified “yes”.

I read The Bishop by Steven James first in this orgy of faith-y thriller mysteries, and I’d say it’s both the best of the three and the most problematic. It’s problematic, for Christian readers at least, because it’s grisly and graphic. FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers is dealing with a pair of serial killers who murder for the fun of it, for the thrill of the chase and the game. The murders this pair commit are disturbingly violent and torture-filled, and the entire novel reminds me of the TV show Bones, a show that comes close to making the “art of murder and torture” seem to be an appealing and intellectually stimulating vocation. Murder by using chimpanzees as surrogate attackers or slow torture/murder by being chained to a rotting corpse are not creative acts of intelligence.

On the other hand, Mr. James does an excellent job of working the philosophical and moral questions raised by a detective’s job into his story. Agent Bowers has a teenage stepdaughter, Tessa, for whom he is the responsible guardian, and as an intelligent young adult still forming her own worldview, Tessa brings up a lot of food for thought, all in context with the story. There’s a wonderful discussion of detective fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle vs. Edgar Allan Poe in chapter eighty-one. (The chapters are short.) And in a couple of other chapters, the characters discuss human nature and whether being “true to oneself” is a good thing or a bad. All of this philosophical and religious speculation is neatly embedded in the story and not at all awkward or pace-slowing. Bottom line, it’s a good, well- paced novel IF you don’t mind the repulsive details of the crimes. The Bishop is the fourth book in The Bowers Files series. It can stand alone, but there are a lot of references to previous books and cases.

Fatal Judgement by Irene Hannon is the first book in a new series called Guardians of Justice. It’s the one of these three that didn’t make the INSPY shortlist, but it’s a creditable action mystery with a romantic angle that did a decent job of keeping my interest to the end, even though I knew what the outcome would be, romantically and mysteriously speaking. U.S. marshall Jake Taylor is assigned to protect a federal judge whose sister has been murdered. The possibilities are that the judge was the real target or that she is the next target. Marshall Jake Taylor already knows Judge Liz Michaels, and he doesn’t much like her. Nevertheless, a job is a job. Can Jake find the killer before he strikes again? And was he somehow mistaken about Judge Michaels?

The third book in my own trilogy of thrillers, Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand, was especially interesting to me because it’s set in Houston. The street names, the restaurants, the malls, the hurricane (Ike), and everything else is authentic Houston-flavored. Spotting the local references was fun. Back on Murder is a police procedural, heavy on the detective work and the politics within HPD. (Names and characters are, I assume, totally fictional to protect the innocent.) Detective Roland March is a veteran Houston cop, disillusioned and near burn-out with a secret in his past that has almost destroyed his marriage and his career. The current case, which takes place in the fall of 2008, concerns a houseful of dead gang-bangers, the missing daughter of a well-known Houston evangelist, a few crooked cops, and a Cars for Criminals sting operation. Could they all be related, or is the relationship between such disparate elements only wishful thinking on the part of March who wants to revive his career in the homicide division?

I can’t promise you’ll enjoy Back on Murder as much as I did. As I said, the Houston elements in the novel captured my interest immediately. The story was good, however, and the pace was O.K., a little slow sometimes and almost frenetic towards the end. I do think my dad, a fan of Ed McBain and the Tv show Law and Order, would have enjoyed this novel. And I have the second in the series, Pattern of Wounds, on reserve at the library.

None of these three novels is particularly preachy or even faith-driven, as far as I could tell. Christianity is an element in the novels; some of the characters, usually not the main character, profess to be Christians. But if you’re looking for a clear (or even subtle) presentation of the gospel in these books, you won’t find it. The Bishop raises interesting questions related to faith and worldview. Fatal Judgement, in a low-key way, “preaches” church-going and a return to faith as a foundation in the midst of suffering and problems. Back on Murder presents the story of a cynical, heart-wounded cop associating with some faithful Christians who certainly don’t wear their faith on their sleeves. However, I’m anticipating that Detective Roland March will have some questions of his own about Christianity and a life lived in faith, perhaps in the next book.

While We’re Far Apart by Lynn Austin

Sep27

I read this book because it’s one of the many novels that has been nominated for the INSPY Award in the category of General Fiction. Also, I like historical fiction,and this book set during Word War II sounded interesting. In fact, I gave it to my mom to read first, thinking she might like the time period setting; she actually remembers the end of World War II. She says she remembers marching around her front yard banging with a spoon on an old pan to celebrate VE Day or VJ Day, one of the two.

However, for my mom the book was a non-starter. She read a few chapters, but since the main characters, or at least one of the main characters, is a twelve year old girl, the book felt too juvenile to her. She suggested I give it to Betsy-Bee who is also twelve years old.

However, since it’s classified as adult fiction, I thought I should read it myself. I’m glad I did. There’s not much in there that a mature 13 or 14 year old wouldn’t understand and appreciate, but the book, especially the pacing, is probably more suited to adults. It doesn’t move too quickly, but rather it’s what I would call a character-centered story. Esther, the twelve year old, is a love-starved little girl who’s just on the edge of adolescence and growing into adulthood. Her mother has died in a car accident, and her father is so absorbed in his grief that he has little or no emotional strength to give to his children. Esther’s brother, Peter, is just as confused and needy as Esther, but he expresses his suffering by becoming mute. The two children are further traumatized when their father decides to volunteer to go to war in order to escape from his memories and from the pain of his wife’s death.

Then, the most interesting character enters the story. Penny Goodrich is the girl next door who’s always, unbeknownst to him, had a crush on the children’s father. When their grandmother refuses to care for the children (she’s a hoarder and has her own issues), Penny steps up, hoping to make Eddie Shaffer, the dad, fall in love with her as she cares for his children. I thought at first Penny was going to be border-line mentally impaired, but as the story progresses, Penny is only very sheltered and a bit slow on the uptake because of her peculiar background and discouraging and over-protective parents who have always told her that she is as “dumb as a green bean.”

I liked figuring out Penny, and then the Jewish characters who show up in the story are also intriguing. Mr. Mendel, the Shaffers’ friend, neighbor, and landlord, is waiting to hear from his son who was trapped in Hungary at the beginning of the war. Mr. Mendel also lost his wife in the same accident that killed Esther’s mother, and he is quite bitter towards “Hashem” the name he uses to speak of God. The book includes lots of questioning about the goodness of God and His role in suffering and evil. “If God is good, why does He let bad things happen?” No easy answers are given, but Mr. Mendel eventually realizes that he cannot leave his faith, or else his faith in God and community will not leave him.

I liked it. If the setting and characters sound like somewhere you would like to visit and people you would like to get to know, if only briefly, check it out.

Note-blogging Forbidden by Tosca Lee and Ted Dekker

Sep24

I’ve never read anything by Tosca Lee or by Ted Dekker, although my nephew says Ted Dekker is his favorite author. Maybe reading this book for Faith ‘n Fiction Roundtable is a good way for me to get a taste of Mr. Dekker’s writing and see if my nephew and I are on the same page.

Chapters 1-5: Forbidden posits a weird dystopian world in which people have no emotions except for fear. I’m not sure why they kept fear. But some people are drinking some bloody magic potion/poison and regaining emotions—maybe only the bad stuff like jealousy, rage, greed and ambition. There should be a violence warning on the front of the book since two people get murdered in the first two chapters, and lots of blood and gore ensue.

Chapters 6-10: For some reason, this book is reminding me of the Dune books by Frank Herbert. Lots of violence. Some kind of strange hierarchical government. People who act as if they’re on drugs. Maybe they are on drugs. I do think it’s difficult, if not impossible to write about people have no emotions. For instance, Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek series was supposedly without emotions, purely logical. However, Spock had emotions, and eventually they had to say that he was only half Vulcan and so had to battle his emotions to some extent. The people n this book are also not completely without emotions (other than fear); they show some sense of pleasure and loyalty and even anger or at least annoyance.

Chapters 11-end : Now this is getting too interesting for me to stop and blog.

So I started out blogging as I read, but I became absorbed in the story and forgot to blog. I suppose that’s a recommendation in itself. Some of the other F’nF roundtable readers found this book to be way too reminiscent of Mr. Dekker’s very popular Circle trilogy, but since I’ve never read anything else by either of the co-authors, it was all new to me. I did think that the central idea of the book was hammered a little to obviously and a lot too often. Some explanation like the following was repeated several times in the last half of the book:

“Yes. I drank some ancient blood and it changed me. If I’m right . . . If the vellum is right, the world is dead. Everyone! But I was brought back to life by the blood.”

The theme is that the lack of emotions and the pervasive fear in this future dystopia are a type of living death, and only a special potion made of blood and then, later, a saviour whose blood is pure and untainted, can reverse the death that pervades the planet and bring new life and feeling to the inhabitants of earth.

It’s a series, so the usual non-ending ending warning is applicable. The series is called The Books of Mortals. Forbidden is available now in bookstores. The second book in the series, Mortal, is promised for September 2012, and the third one, Sovereign, will be available in September 2013.

You can visit the blogs of other Faith ‘N Fiction roundtable members to find out more about Forbidden:

Book Addiction | Book Hooked Blog | Book Journey | Books and Movies | Crazy for Books | Ignorant Historian | Linus’ Blanket | My Friend Amy | My Random Thoughts | The 3 R’s | Tina’s Book Reviews | Wordlily

His Other Wife by Deborah Bedford

Sep5

There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none. Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD. Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the LORD had closed her womb. Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” NIV

His Other Wife is the story of a divorced woman, Hilary, and her son, Seth, and Seth’s “other family”, his father, the woman his father is now married to, and their children. The horrible effects of divorce and desertion are not soft-pedaled, but the story manages to jump from one character’s viewpoint to another and make the reader understand to some extent why everyone did what they did. Eric, the dad in the story, is a selfish adulterer, but he’s also a father who loves his son and wants to connect with him. The other wife, Pam, is competitive with an uncontrolled tongue, but she’s also fragile and insecure and trying to make a family with her husband, Eric. Hilary is lonely and way too dependent on her son for her own emotional stability, but she’s a good mom and a persistently loving one. Seth has his own issues, but he’s too busy keeping mom afloat and trying to make her happy to deal with his own emotional needs.

Then, tragedy breaks the entire family dynamic wide open. The story is loosely based on the family dynamic in Hannah’s story in I Samuel. But whereas Hannah and Peninah were rivals in having children, Hilary and Pam are competing for the love and attention of their children, especially Seth. The characters and their interactions are well-written and engaging in this book, and the calamity that brings out all the hidden dysfunction in the family makes the story move along and continue to grab the reader’s attention all the way to the end.

This novel is published by FaithWords, and there is some Christian content and teaching embedded in the story. Hilary’s faith both sustains and challenges her, even though she doesn’t think of herself as much of a Christian, just a semi-regular church-goer who prays emergency “help!” prayers when things go wrong. But in the book, God honors even those simple prayers and brings stability and peace into Hilary’s life when she is desperate enough to look to Him. It wasn’t over-poweringly preachy to me, but others may disagree with that assessment. His Other Wife was a good, thoughtful read which put great characters into an arresting situation that brought out the best and worst in each of them. Good dialog and good psychological insights complete this solid story of two families who must come together for the sake of a son who is suffering a life-changing trial.